PerformanceTest Windows Version History

V10.2 Build 1017 - 20th/February/2023

• Fixed possible issue on certain Ryzen systems where they cannot reboot after running PerformanceTest. Root cause seems to be Motherbaord BIOS bug in SMBus register settings. This release contains a workaround for the bug. If you see this, symptoms are that the machine fails to detect RAM sticks on a reboot, which might result in 3 beep error and or a black screen. A second reboot or clearing CMOS fixes the problem. More details here.

V10.2 Build 1016 - 1st/February/2023

• Fixed possible crash at start-up when trying to collect Intel GPU temperatures

V10.2 Build 1015 - 13th/January/2023

• Fixed possible crash at start-up when getting clean HDD name (could be triggered by having a Microsoft storage space device setup)

V10.2 Build 1014 - 29th/December/2022

• Increased frame rate check for DX11 "result too high" error message as some newer high powered cards are well above this limit

V10.2 Build 1013 - 21st/December/2022

• Install/Run from USB, fixed a bug where the default disk location could default to the USB drive letter instead of C: when running the disk test from USB
• DX12 test, added a frame limit (rather than time based) on the "warp" effect at start to try and prevent a "grid" being displayed on nvidia cards
• Advanced CPU, fixed graphing anomaly drawing 0 value as last data point of graph and not drawing graph when only 1 data point existed
• Added a check if the DirectIO driver (used for system information and temperature collection) failed to load when collecting temperatures to try and prevent an error box being displayed every sample
• Added GPU naming for several Ryzen CPUs (542X, 5300U, 5400U, 5700U, 3200, 3400, 3500 U/G/GE, 7000)
• Made a change so the drive tested isn't set to "Unknown" if physical disk number doesn't match the found index (seen on a system with removable sata drives after being removed)
• Initial support for Intel ARC GPU temperature collection
• Added support for collecting RAM info from systems with more than 64 memory slots
• Added support for retrieving DDR5 SPD on Intel Raptor Lake-S (13th gen)
• Added support for retrieving DDR5 SPD on AMD Ryzen chipsets
• Added Ryzen 7000 series support for information, temperature and naming integrated graphics

V10.2 Build 1012 - 17th/November/2022

• Fixed Directio driver failing to load on some systems (caused by 22H2 updates) which would prevent temperatures from being collected and could display Windows "Program Compatibility" driver cannot load errors
• Updated system information library to support retrieving CPU info for Intel Raptor Lake, Tremont and Sapphire Rapids chipsets
• Fixed retrieving cache info for Intel hybrid architectures

V10.2 Build 1011 - 28th/October/2022

• Increased number of CPU processes supported to 1024
• Advanced Memory Test, forced results message box for latency test to be modal to stop it being lost in the background
• Updated CPU cache information for Intel hybrid architectures so numbers of caches displayed should be more accurate
• Changed CPU cache display to allow decimal points
• Preliminary support for retrieving Intel Raptor Lake CPU info
• Added checks for invalid SMBIOS structure types to prevent crashes on some systems
• Increased max number of SMBus controllers to
• Fixed a crash when reading temperatures on a system with 8 CPUs

V10.2 Build 1010 - 21st/September/2022

• Removed dependency on VCRUNTIME140.DLL

V10.2 Build 1009 - 12th/September/2022

• Updated Directio64.sys with another newly Microsoft signed version to fix issues with Windows 11 22H2

V10.2 Build 1008 - 19th/July/2022

• Fixed key.dat not being created correctly when installing to USB
• Added a warning message at start-up if digital signature is invalid for PerformanceTest exectuable

V10.2 Build 1007 - 7th/July/2022

• Fixed opening of .ptscript files to handle ANSI and unicode (with BOM)
• Baseline upload, changed to HTTP post for uploading files instead of FTP (to prevent future issues with moving servers again)
• Advanced memory test, fixed the progress bar overflowing/resetting to the start while testing
• Fixed opening of key.dat files so that both ANSI and UTF8 key.dat files will work (previously only UTF8 file formats would work correctly)

V10.2 Build 1006 - 17th/May/2022

• Fixed baseline uploading that was broken due to passmark.com moving to a new webserver
• Added check for existence of selected disk before starting test and added error message when not found (eg test was run on a removable drive that is now missing)
• Rebuilt ARM CryptoPP with newest version of VS2019 (16.11.13) to avoid ARM SHA hashing errors from earlier versions

V10.2 Build 1005 - 1st/April/2022

• Fixed an issue on 12th gen Intel CPUs that could result in the calling thread being locked to a low performing E-Core (thread affinity was not being set back to the original correctly) which would result in lower than expected 2D test scores
• Fixed bug where PerformanceTest failed to generate a API key when running from USB/using a key.dat
• Fix a crash that could occur when using "Copy Results as Text"
• Advanced memory test, fixed a bug preventing the graph from being displayed correctly after running a threaded test

V10.2 Build 1004 - 9th/February/2022

• ARM, Reverted CryptoPP library back to previous version to avoid SHA issues that was causing many problems with internal hashes for the main user interface, the CPU test (encryption) will continue to use the latest CryptoPP version as it is a separate executable.
  This is an ARM only change.
• OpenCL test, attempt to pick discrete (non-integrated) card when more than one card of the same manufacturer is available (seen on AMD systems with both integrated and discrete AMD cards)

V10.2 Build 1003 - 4th/February/2022

• ARM64, more SHA hashing related fixes that was stopping baselines from being submitted
• Fixed an unusual case where disk partition information would not be displayed if the disk's MBR contained empty partition information for the first entry, this could also stop the disk being displayed for testing

V10.2 Build 1002 - 3rd/February/2022

• ARM64, added workaround for broken SHA hashing in CryptoPP (using windows Bcrypt library instead) that was causing licencing errors and failure to show charts
• Made a change so ARM CPU info is loaded at start-up (to help with graphing display)
• Fixed bug in system information collection of Ice Lake-SP (3rd gen Xeon Scalable) CPU info
• Fixed an issue in system information collection when collecting disk partition info where function could return too early

V10.2 Build 1001 - 20th/December/2021

• Fixed incorrect P/E core reporting in user interface (values were switched)

V10.2 Build 1000 - 15th/December/2021

• Updated system information and user interface to distinguish between P (performance) and E (efficiency) cores, for Intel 12th Gen CPUs.
• Correct detection of available P and E cores also allowed the correct number of threads be run in the multi-threaded CPU tests.
• Updated system information with support to handle multiple CPU caches at each level
• Added '/au' flag that auto-runs PT and then uploads the result to the PassMark website
• Updated Crypto++ library version in use to 8.6, this should result in much faster encryption results on ARM systems due increased use of available CPU instructions and slightly faster results on x86 systems. Previous library didn't use hardware acceleration on ARM, (except for the Apple M1)
• Encryption Test, AES, made some changes to work with latest version of Crypto++. This was required because V8.6 of Crypto++ was much slower than previous releases unless memory buffer usage was also modified.
• Baseline Upload. Simplified the upload window and added use of a API key to upload baseline to associate it with a user. So users can (optionally) upload baselines to their account and track performance changes over time. Upon entering license key and registering, a API key is created/retrieved from server. An free API key can also be requested from Passmark web site once an account is created. Anonymous uploads are still supported.
• Removed 5% difference for uploading baselines check. This allows similar baseline files to be uploaded. Duplicates will still be ignored when creating the global averages however.
• Baseline management, fixed loading of some baselines that were missing system information sections
• Started displaying power source "AC" or "Battery" on system information - old baselines with no information will be N/A. Battery powered systems tend to have reduced performance due to their power plan setup.
• Fixed a crash that could occur in the ARM version when opening the baseline manager dialog
• Made a change on system information tab to display RAM SPD info if only partially collected for system (eg a mix of RAM modules that don't all return SPD details)
• Fixed bug where when running from USB drive, the config file loaded on program start was reading the settings on the desktop install and not the USB drive
• GPU Compute, fixed a crash when starting 3D NBodyGravity test if no DX11 adapters were found
• Added Windows 11 and Server 2019 to baseline manager search
• Added 'View Last Uploaded Baseline...' menu option
• CPU Integer test, made some minor changes to the order of operations in the test, this should stop them being optimised away on non-windows builds which used the CLang compiler instead of Visual Studio (and have no effect on windows builds).

V10.1 Build 1007 - 19th/October/2021

• PDF Test, removed min/max/close buttons from window
• 2D Mark, stopped mark being calculated if some of the older tests (eg simple vectors) hadn't been run
• Disk Test, attempt to stop a crash caused by failing/mis-performing hard disks taking too long to close a file handle after a test
• Updated system information library to correct some incorrect CPU cache values being returned

V10.1 Build 1006 - 7th/October/2021

• Fixed PerformanceTest not launching as Administrator by default which would result in not collecting temperature and system information correctly

V10.1 Build 1005 - 29th/September/2021

• Added naming support for Ryzen 5/7/9 5000 series integrated video cards
• Started remembering and restoring current PT window position when running 3D tests due to strange behaviour where the window could be moved around different monitors on some setups
• System information updates

V10.1 Build 1004 - 7th/September/2021

• Fixed a potential crash when checking for an updated version
• Updated system information library (support for Intel Elkhart Lake)

V10.1 Build 1003 - 20th/August/2021

• Fixed a timing issue that could cause the CPU test to stop immediately and return no results
• Fixed a timing issue that could cause the Disk test to stop immediately and return no results or crash
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using the German translation and mousing over the your hardware vs the same distribution graph
• Added DDR5 support when retrieving system information

V10.1 Build 1002 - 25th/May/2021

• CPU Tests - Made wait time slightly longer due to some timeouts waiting for tests to finish on on systems with large thread counts
• CPU, Compression test - Decreased the number of loops performed before checking if the test time was reached to prevent a timeout in system with large thread counts
• Fixed an issue reading AMD 4600/4800 CPU temps
• Fixed an issue preventing AMD GPU temperatures from being read if ADL_Graphics_Platform_Get failed to be loaded from the ADL library

V10.1 Build 1001 - 5th/May/2021

• Disk Tests and Advanced Disk Test, changed calculation of MB values to use international system of units (SI) value for MB (1,000,000 bytes) instead of MiB (1,048,576).
  This brings it closer into line with how disk manufacturers are marketing disk drive speeds.
  Old baseline values for disk tests and disk mark will be converted to new display value.
• Drive Performance and Advanced Disk Test, fixed a bug that was causing RAM disks using logical drive emulation to be excluded from the list of available drives to test

V10.1 Build 1000 - 23rd/February/2021

• Initial release for Windows ARM support. All CPU, 2D, Memory and Disk tests have been natively compiled to run on Windows ARM.
  For 3D tests, due to limited support for some older DX9 and DX10 helper libraries these tests have not been converted and will not be run in the Windows ARM version of PerformanceTest.
  The DX11 test will be run in x86 emulated mode, again due to limited support for some of the DirectX libraries used for them. The DX12 test has been compiled to run natively.
  For the 3D GPU compute tests, the Nbody gravity, Mandelbrot and Qjulia4D have been compiled to run natively on Windows ARM. The OpenCL test cannot be run on Windows ARM.
• Score display, due to incredibly slow values for some 2D/3D results on Microsoft Surface ARM systems, now when a score is less than 10 the score will be displayed to 1 decimal place.
• Started filtering "with" out of some CPU names when dynamically creating a Radeon graphics card name (eg Radeon Graphics Ryzen 9 4900HS)
• Baseline custom colours, changed the default yellow to a darker shade for better readability of white text when it is drawn over the graph
• Fixed a crash that could occur in the disk test

V10.0 Build 1011 - 29th/January/2021

• Stopped user interface resizing when 3D tests were running, sometimes during the start of DX10 test a resize message would get sent to PT which would fail and display a "Could not reset the Direct3D device" error
• Fixed an issue where is a drive tested was bitlocker encrypted then PerformanceTest might not match the partitions to the physical disk and display "Unknown drive"
• Fixed a possible crash when viewing graphs
• Temperature collection, added support for Intel Tiger Lake chipsets
• Temperature collection, initial support for AMD Ryzen 5000 Series (Family 19h) CPU info and temperatures
• Temperature collection, support for CPU groups when retrieving per-core temperatures for Intel chipsets
• System information, Decreased timeout from 5 seconds to 1 when collection SMART information when waiting for scsi commands to timeout (decrease amount of time spent detecting temp sources and reading smart info when USB drives are attached)

V10.0 Build 1010 - 12th/October/2020

• Fixed an issue generating as 2D mark in windows 7 (due to not being able to run PDF and SVG tests)
• Fixed a possible crash when loading advanced test result graphs
• Fixed a crash that could occur when resizing the user interface when no baselines were selected
• Disabled old DirectWrite code path for fonts and text test as it could crash when it tries to fall back to it (eg when a default Microsoft VGA driver is installed)

V10.0 Build 1009 - 9th/September/2020

• Updated internal YAML library used for baselines and test results
• Baselines, fixed an issue where there were two instances of b48BitAddressSupported in the SMART info which would break YAML parsing
• Baselines, fixed an issue where there were two instances of iComputeUnits in the video card info which would break YAML parsing
• Baseline chart user interface, increased size of chart buttons
• Baseline chart user interface, move gauge/distribution chart buttons to bottom right of chart
• System Information, added support for NVMe drives behind USB-NVMe bridge (eg JMicron JMS583, Realtek RTL9210, ASMedia ASM2362)
• System Information, added naming support for AMD Ryzen 5/7/9 4000 series integrated graphics
• System Information, fixed a security issue with DirectIO device driver that runs as part of system information collection. Hypothetical exploit was possible that allowed user to bypass operating system restrictions & install arbitrary software. But user would already need to be the elevated Admin user on the local machine to take advantage of exploit. So overall additional risk is low. No usage of this exploit has been seen in the field. New DirectIO version is V13.0

V10.0 Build 1008 - 6th/August/2020

• System Information, fixed a security issue with DirectIO device driver that runs as part of system information collection. new DirectIO version is V12.4
• Advanced Disk Test, added 16MB, 32MB, 16GB and 32GB options to test file sizes
• Increased main window default size slightly to show all elements correctly

V10.0 Build 1007 - 1st/July/2020

• Advanced memory test, Fixed graphing button not being disabled for latency test in some instances (no graphs available for latency test)
• Memory test, Database operations, limited max amount of test threads to 32 for this test due to timeouts
• 2D Test, Direct2D, fixed a possible situation where the test could return a 0 score when not running at the default resolution
• 2D Test, Direct2D, fixed a penalty calculation error that could result in a score of 0
• PDF Test, fixed a bug that was preventing the test running on windows 8.1
• PDF Test, fixed a bug where the PDF test was attempting to run in windows 8 while the minimum supported was 8.1
• Allowed 2D mark to be generated if missing 1 test (eg windows 8.1 but still failing to run the SVG test)
• Stopped 2D tests setting flag for no DX11 support, windows 8.1 systems with Dx11 support may still fail the SVG test
• Fixed crash that could occur in primes test when run on a single core single threaded CPU
• Fixed a BSOD on startup when running using QEMU

V10.0 Build 1006 - 23rd/April/2020

• Fixed a BSOD when running in an Amazon EC2 instance
• Changed cross platform mark to use the best result out of the normal primes test and a primes test limited to physical cores

V10.0 Build 1005 - 17th/April/2020

• Save as text, added an option to include system information when exporting to tab and semi-colon format text.
• 2D Tests - Fonts and text, fixed a possible crash when the test setup fails.
• Added encryption sub test results (AES, SHA256, ECDSA) to baseline file.
• Cross platform mark, made some changes so a second primes test is run that is restricted to only physical cores and this score is what is used for the cross platform mark.
• No longer generating a cross platform mark for old (V9/V8) baselines when they are loaded due to the above changes.

V10.0 Build 1004 - 16th/March/2020

• CPU Test - Compression test, made some changes to increase speed of compression test. The test compresses random data. But it was observed that the generation of random data was taking a large portion of the test execution time. Investigation showed recent Windows patches slowed down the performance of the standard Rand() function. Microsoft are also discouraging its use for other reasons. So we switched to using std::minstd_rand. The test now spends more time compressing data and less time creating random test data.
• CPU Test - Single thread test, due to changes in the compression test the single thread test will now be slightly higher as the compression test is part of the single threaded test. This also goes some way to addressing concerns that some AMD CPUs were performing below expectations in the single threaded test. (minstd_rand is slightly faster on some AMD chips than Rand)
• CPU Mark - due to compression and single threaded test changes the CPU mark has been rebalanced for these changes. The single thread test is now weighted slightly more than the other tests.
• Advanced Network test - Fixed a bug preventing the TCP server thread starting correctly so the TCP test would stop after a few seconds. This was due to a bug in the RIO support implmentation.

V10.0 Build 1003 - 13th/March/2020

• Histogram charts, fixed some issue loading V10 charts, fixed some missing charts for new tests.
• Baseline manager, fixed a crash that could occur when there were no CPU/GPU model names loaded from the chart data
• Started adding PT8 or PT9 flags to all old V8 and V9 baselines when an individual test result is displayed
• Install to USB, fixed a missing subfolder from the media folder that was not being copied to the USB correctly

V10.0 Build 1002 - 9th/March/2020

• CPU tests, Single Threaded, started scaling single threaded score down to be closer to PT9 for better comparability with older results.
• 2D Tests, 2D Image Rendering, changed score displayed to thousand images/sec instead of images/sec for better readability.
• Fixed drag and drop on main window of loading of baselines not working
• Fixed an issue for the test status window, when running a single CPU test it was not correctly displaying the test that was running

V10.0 Build 1001 - 5th/March/2020

• Score rebalancing
  • Due to the large amount of changes made to the 2D/3D/CPU/Disk tests all the calculated mark values have been rebalanced and scaled to be similar (but not exactly the same) to that of PerformanceTest 9.
  • Individual test scores have not been scaled so a direct comparison cannot be made in many cases between version 9 and version 10.
• Windows Support
  • No longer supporting Windows versions older than Vista.
• Compiler updates
  • We have switched from using Visual Studio 2013 (for V9) to Visual Studio 2019 for V10. Newer compiler versions typically bring improved code optimisation and use of newer CPU instructions.
• CPU Tests
  • Enabled compiler optimisations for the CPU tests that had previously been disabled. This has resulted in better performance on newer CPUs when compared to older ones.
  • Compression Test, replace with a new version that uses the Cypto++ Gzip library. Previous versions of PerformanceTest were using a Adaptive encoding algorithm, which gave good compression rates on text, but was't in common use. Zip is the defacto standard for real world data compression.
  • Encryption test, removed Salsa and TwoFish from the sub tests that are run and replaced them with an ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) sub test. Previously PerformanceTest V9 had 4 sub-tests. These were, TwoFish, AES, Salsa20 & SHA256. Now we have three sub-tests. AES, ECDSA & SHA256. These are all algorithms that are heavily used in the real world.
  • Extended Instructions (SSE), added an AVX512 test (when available). AVX512 are a new set of CPU instructions that are in newer CPUs.
  • Extended Instructions (SSE), fixed a pointer math issue in the test that was referencing incorrect memory locations. Accessing the correct data helped with data alignment and improved test throughput.
  • Extended Instructions (SSE), made some changes to the SSE/AVX/FMA tests for how the results are retrieved and stored for next calculation loop (using _mm_storeu_ps and mm256_storeu_ps).
  • Extended Instructions (SSE), removed custom aligned vector/matrix class and switched to standard vector/matrix class. Changed how matrix data is loaded before test (using _mm256_broadcast_ps).
  • Integer Math, made some changes to add better support for out of order execution. This makes the algorithm less linear and gives modern CPUs the change to get more calculations done in parallel.
  • Added a Cross-platform mark to the CPU test, made up of the Integer, Floating point, sorting and prime test scores. This will be calculated when loading a V9 baseline in V10 if the required scores are available. This cross platform score is not used when generating the overall CPU mark as it based on previously run tests. We envisage that we'll use these results in the future for cross platform comparisons (x86 PCs vs ARM based mobile devices).
  • Physics test, updated Bullet physics engine to version 2.88. Previously we were using 2.83.
• 2D Tests
  • Added a new SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) image rendering test that will open and display several SVG images.
  • Added a new “PDF Render” test that will open a PDF and scroll through the available pages.
  • Changed default test size to 1920 x 1080. This should place more load on the video card than was previously the case so frame rates are lower across the board compared to V9. Tests will scale down in size to 1024x768 and a penalty will be applied and will not run at lower resolutions than this.
  • Direct 2D, increased amount of objects displayed during test.
  • Windows Interface test, increased size of dialog and number of controls on dialog.
  • Image Filters and Image Rendering, added DX11 versions of this test. Results are a combination of old and new tests.
  • Due to these updates scores and the 2D mark value in older versions of Windows (eg Windows 7) will be far lower as it isn't possible to scale meaningfully when multiple tests can't be run.
  • Complex vectors, removed this test as it has been replaced by the new SVG test and is no longer relevant
  • Direct2D SVG Test, changed test for better consistency over different test lengths. Less image are part of the test but each one will be displayed at least once. Due to more complex images being displayed the test results will be lower than in the initial release.
• 3D Tests
  • DX9, changed default resolution to 1920x1080, test will be scaled down and a penalty applied if it cannot be run at this resolution.
  • DX9, increased default Anti Aliasing level to 8, changed skybox and number of objects in scene. This was done with the aim of making the test less CPU bound.
  • DX10, increased default resolution to 1920x1080, test will be scaled down and a penalty applied if it cannot be run at this resolution. This adds load to the video card.
  • DX10, increased number of islands and meteors during test.
  • DX10, fixed a bug when enumerating display modes for the DX10 test where no compatible card would be found if there was a large amount (>500) of display modes.
  • GPU Compute, replaced the Bittonic sort test with an NBody Gravity test. Nobody knew what a Bittonic sort was or how it applied to the real world. NBody simulations on the other hand are a fairly common scientific application and they make a good visual impact.
  • GPU Compute, increased default size for sub tests to 1920x1080.
  • GPU Compute, OpenCL test, made some changes to particle size and variables used for calculations so more is happening during the test.
  • GPU Compute, Mandelbrot test, increased number of iterations 10x to slow down the test execution.
  • Started allowing ”Microsoft RemoteFX Graphics Device” for 3D support on some VMs.
• Memory Tests
  • Increased amount of memory that non-cached tests use to 512MB of RAM (up from 256MB).
  • Database Operations, changed to use an in memory sqlite3 database based on SQLite 3.31.1. Will run for maximum available physical cores and use at least 128MB RAM per thread.
  • Threaded, changed to run a range of threads up the maximum available (eg 2, 4, 8, 16 or 3, 6, 12 depending on available core count) and use highest score. Amount of RAM used will depend on number of threads, <= 16 threads 512 MB, <=64 threads 1 GB, > 64 threads 2 GB.
  • Threaded and Database operations, added support for processor groups and thread affinity.
  • Latency test, now will take measurements based on 16KB, 64KB and 8MB ranges (previously was just 64KB) and use the average value of the three tests for the score. This will give a broader range of samples and will result in higher latency figures than PT9.
• Disk tests
  • Changed name of “Random Seek” test to “32KQD20” to better represent the test (using 32K block size with a queue depth of 20).
  • Added a new “4KQD1” test (using 4k block size with a queue depth of 1).
  • Increased test files size to 400MB for write test, 800MB for read test (traditional hard drive). If drive is an SSD then it is 1GB for write test and 2GB for read test.
  • Removed the CD test
• Advanced Physics Test
  • Added option to allow resolution to be selected.
  • Updated Bullet physics engine to version 2.88. Previously was using 2.83.
  • Added message check on exit to stop "not responding" when closing while using a large number of objects.
• Advanced Network Test
  • Added threading, Windows RIO (Registered Input/Output API Extensions) sockets option. These changes were made to achieve higher throughput & lower latency, particularly on 10Gb+ networks. You should now be able to really push the limits of your networking gear with these changes.
• Advanced Disk Test
  • Made some changes to try and stop crashes during the advanced disk IOPS test when the hard drive is failing/responding abnormally.
  • Added temperature collection to test results. Can now choose to display the temperature or the latency heat map when displaying a graph. This has become important as some SSDs throttle down their speed under high temperatures.
• Advanced Memory Test
  Added "Threaded" test option to advanced memory test, currently will run the threaded memory test starting with 1 thread up to (Cores * Threads per core) threads. Each test loop is repeated 3 times and the best result stored.
  • Now opens graph automatically at end of testing.
  • Updated latency test to use same settings as standard test, running random range latency test for 16KB, 64Kb and 8MB ranges and then averaging the results.
• NEW Advanced CPU Test
  • Added an advanced CPU test, this allows individual CPU tests to be run from 1 thread up to a specified number of threads and then the results graphed.
• NEW Advanced Internet Speed test
  • Added an implementation of M-Labs (https://www.measurementlab.net) internet speed test that will connect to their servers, performance a 10 second upload test, a 10 second download test and then display the results from that test.
• Baseline management
  • Re-enabled choosing of colours for loaded baselines, this will only affect the bar graph colour of the baseline and the text colour will not change.
• Localisation
  • Added a section in the installer to allow selection of a supported language, on install first launch PT will now choose that language by default.
• Reporting
  • Added percentile options to exported text, formatted text and HTML reports.
• Baseline Management
  • Added a way of tracking submitted baselines and displaying them in the advanced baseline management dialog under the “Uploaded” tab.
• Scripting
  • Added SETRERUNRESULT to toggle re-run config setting. Choose between keeping BEST and NEW result when re running tests.
  • Added HIDEBASELINES option to only add current computer results to exported results files.
  • Added CPU_RUNTEST and ACPU_SETEXPORT commands for scripting the advanced CPU test.
  • Changed "Result Date" to be local time instead of UTC for consistency (windows install time was already local time).
  • HTML report output, fixed a bug where the Unicode BOM was not being correctly written to the start of the file if the file was opened in append mode and didn't already exist.
  • Removed 2 extra line breaks being added at end of records for REPORTSUMMARYCSV command.
• Misc
  • Chart display, added percentage difference to baselines when a score the "this computer" is available. Also added option in the preferences to enable/disable.
  • Fixed an incorrect error message in the advanced drive performance test when a selected disk did not have enough free space.
  • Fixed a bug when saving results to an image, the scrollbar width was being applied and causing some result to be hidden.
  • Added a gray rectangle to custom list view header so the boundary that can be used to resize the columns is highlighted
  • System information, Changed ram details in baseline system info to display in GB.
  • Now displaying "Baseline #X" instead of just "#X" on system information window for loaded baselines.
  • Report exports, added BIOS version and hard drive size as a separate field to the exported report system information.
  • User Interface, Made back/prev/next buttons in 3D component info view slightly lighter so they stand out more.
  • No longer displaying PNP ID on Video card system info display.
  • Fixed some preferences dialog alignments.
  • CSV export, fixed an issue where multiple "unknown disk" entries could be output and change column ordering.
  • Fixed baseline display link after submission still showing V9 and not new V10 link.
  • Excluded the "Cross platform mark" from the status window display when running all CPU tests (as this is calculated after all test have been run rather than a separate test).

V9.0 Build 1035 - 7th/November/2019

• Fixed a crash at startup on some systems when collecting SMBIOS system information

V9.0 Build 1034 - 22nd/October/2019

• Fixed some display issues when collecting system information for graphics cards;
  • on systems with integrated & discrete cards in some cases multiple entries were displayed
  • monitors were not assigned to the correct video card
  • some Nvidia cards were not being saved in the baseline correctly

V9.0 Build 1033 - 3rd/October/2019

• Fixed a crash on start up when collecting graphics system information

V9.0 Build 1032 - 2nd/October/2019

• Fixed an issue when trying to print in windows 10
• Fixed a crash on start up that could occur on Intel Baytrail systems due to an invalid MSR read
• Made some changes to try and stop crashes during the advanced disk IOPS test when the hard drive is failing/responding abnormally
• Fixed a bug with the save results as image function being impacted by the scroll bar on normal graph displays (would only save as many results as were displayed)
• Added more information to "Could not reset the Direct3D device" error

V9.0 Build 1031 - 10th/April/2019

• Baseline management - added max cpu/3d/disk scores to advanced baseline search windows. Will now force a min and max score entry (with a differnence no larger than 1000) when doing a search based only on a cpu/3d/disk score.
• Removed Nvidia G-Sync check before submitting baseline results as the Nvidia API was not reliable and could indicate G-Sync was enabled on systems that did not support it
• Fixed a bug in the DX12 test where it would not always choose the video card with the largest amount of RAM

V9.0 Build 1030 - 13th/December/2018

• System information library updated to support Radeon RX 590, support for retrieving CPU info for Intel Goldmont

V9.0 Build 1029 - 20th/November/2018

• Fixed a crash that could occur during the disk test

V9.0 Build 1028 - 24th/October/2018

• Fixed a bug when enumerating display modes for the DX10 test where no compatible card would be found if there was a large amount (>500) of display modes
• Updated temperature offsets for some AMD Ryzen CPUs to make the temperatures more accurate

V9.0 Build 1027 - 24th/August/2018

• Updated system information library to fix a crash that could occur on Windows 10 Enterprise with device guard enabled on some AMD systems

V9.0 Build 1026 - 2nd/August/2018

• Fixed a crash that could occur in the Advanced Disk Drive Performance test when a call to get the drive information failed
• Changed advanced memory test to allocate up to 25% of system ram (previously would limit to 2GB)
• Fixed a crash that could occur when adding a large amount of baselines at once using the baseline management window

V9.0 Build 1025 - 26th/April/2018

• Fixed an issue with NUMA settings when selecting a processor using a different node to the one the PerformanceTest EXE was running on
• Fixed a crash that could occur at startup due to a buffer overflow when downloading updated chart data

V9.0 Build 1024 - 14th/March/2018

• Made a change so that the high powered card on dual graphics card systems is displayed in the "your card vs" comparisons
• Advanced Drive Test, fixed freeze bug when filesize is larger than the maximum allowed per the drive's filesystem.
• Advanced Drive Test, Widen the rows on the table and updated displayed precision for Latency Read/Write tests (will show microseconds, us, instead of ms where applicable). This is important when benchmarking very low latency RAM drives.
• Advanced Drive Test, Improved test consistency. Previously the creation of the test file and the the actual test period could overlap on some disk systems due to caching. This could cause a slow start to the test. If a drive respects caching directives this shoould no longer happen.
• Fixed openCL test crashing/not displaying an error message when no openCL library is available
• Added monitor DPI to baseline information
• Updated system information library to correctly report details about new hardware

V9.0 Build 1023 - 8th/January/2018

• Made some changes so test scores greater than 0 but less than 1 are rounded up to 1 when displayed (to avoid them showing as 0)
• Added a new example baselines to reflect newer hardware on the market
• Started displaying text scaling factor / DPI settings in the with video card information. The DPI setting can impact the 2D results (more pixels to move around means slower 2D at high DPI)

V9.0 Build 1022 - 20th/December/2017

• Fixed a crash that could occur when exporting a test graph (eg advanced memory test) to an image
• Fixed a bug in the Advanced memory test where NUMA settings were not being taken into account for memory latency and block size testing
• Fixed a crash that could occur in the memory latency test

V9.0 Build 1021 - 20th/November/2017

• Fixed the naming of some AMD RX 560 cards when they share the same device ID as the RX 460
• Updated help to a new format to allow opening and display of current topic on Win10 systems

V9.0 Build 1020 - 3rd/November/2017

• Added a 64bit build of the DX12 test executable which will be launched on 64bit systems.

V9.0 Build 1019 - 18th/September/2017

• Increased font size slightly on "vs loaded baselines" display
• Made some changes to hard drives names so that if SMART data is available then that name is prioritised over the WMI information (the current default source). This should lead to hard drives having more accurate names.
• Fixed a bug preventing Intel multi cpu systems calculating a temperature average
• A few more AMD Vega naming updates

V9.0 Build 1018 - 6th/September/2017

• Fixed a bug that was preventing the available compute units for video cards being retrieved which meant not being able to correctly name some models (eg Vega56/64)

V9.0 Build 1017 - 31st/August/2017

• Fixed a bug that was preventing baselines without a 3D score from being uploaded
• Updated system information library with some changes;
  • Added correct naming of AMD RX 580 (vs RX 480)
  • Added correct naming of AMD Vega 56 vs Vega 64

V9.0 Build 1016 - 11th/August/2017

• Updated system information library with some changes;
  • Added temperature offsets for Ryzen ThreadRipper chipsets
  • Added support for obtaining CPU info for Skylake-X chipset
  • Fixed bug with measuring base/turbo speeds
  • Fixed a bug where temperature average was not calculated for systems with multiple CPUs

V9.0 Build 1015 - 10th/July/2017

• Added /DontGatherCPU command line parameter to disable CPU info gathering
• Fixed an issue where DX12 test may fail to load required resources and run when running as part of a script
• Fixed a crash that could occur when viewing baseline comparisons if a baseline filename was longer than 64 characters
• CPU/GPU/HDD temps will now update on system information tab as well
• Changed HDD temps to only update every 10 seconds (vs 5 for CPU/GPU)
• Fixed a bug preventing the temperatures from updating consistently on the 3D window display
• Changed HTTP links to HTTPS as passmark.com now only uses HTTPS

V9.0 Build 1014 - 13th/April/2017

• Added temperature support for AMD Ryzen systems
• Added windows server 2016 to advanced baseline search options
• Fixed a bug in the scripting were EXPORT... commands could have the export file name corrupted by previous EXPORT commands

V9.0 Build 1013 - 3rd/April/2017

• Fixed a bug that could cause a BSOD/crash at startup when collecting system information on older AMD based systems

V9.0 Build 1012 - 31st/March/2017

• Added support for reading memory SPD information (DDR4) and turbo speed on AMD Ryzen systems

V9.0 Build 1011 - 24th/March/2017

• Changed how the DX12 test detects available video memory to better detect cards unabled to run the 4K test at 2xAA

V9.0 Build 1010 - 20th/March/2017

• Fixed an issue when collecting system information that could prevent the video card details being collected correctly

V9.0 Build 1009 - 17th/March/2017

• Fixed bug causing warning dialog about cannot load configuration file with autorun command "/a_" line option if no <initialization file> is specified.
• Fixed Baseline 'Notes' not appearing in System Information screen
• Made some changes to try and prevent a DX12 crash on switchable graphics systems
• Changed the HTML export function so that it will no longer open a browser window automatically when export HTML results in a script
• Fixed a scripting bug where paths with spaces weren't being handled correctly when using the EXPORT command
• Made some changes so that the OpenCl test will still work when launched with an incorrect working directory

V9.0 Build 1008 - 7th/February/2017

• Fixed a bug where the baseline was saving some drive information incorrectly which in some cases could break the baseline parsing and cause it to fail to be submitted
• Disks under test that don't match a physical disk (eg RAM disks) are shown as "Unknown disk"
• An upgrade dialog is now shown correctly when someone tries to use a PT8 key in PT9

V9.0 Build 1007 - 22nd/December/2016

• Fixed a crash in the DX12 test if some of the required resources were missing or inaccessible
• Made a change so results from advanced 3D tests -> DX12 are shown on dialog when user quits test early

V9.0 Build 1006 - 9th/December/2016

• Fixed a crash that could occur if a disk test file failed to be created properly
• Updated preferences help for removed options
• Fixed a crash when trying to use the scroll bar in the your hardware vs loaded baseline view when there was a lot of baselines loaded
• Fixed a crash when exporting results in HTML format from an advanced disk test
• Made some changes to how DX12 test detects available graphics memory to avoid adding an MSAA penalty in some situations
• Made some changes so some AMD integrated cards will be displayed with the CPU as part of the name, eg "R7 PRO A8-9600" instead of the generic "AMD Radeon R7 Graphics"

V9.0 Build 1005 - 25th/November/2016

• Changed the DX12 test so MSAA is disabled for video cards with less than 4GB of shared graphics memory when running at 4K resolution and a penalty of 20% is applied. This will prevent a crash that could occur when the video card does not have enough memory for the test at 4K resolution (seen on integrated video cards).
• Fixed a bug that was preventing some results from being output when using the EXPORTHTML script command
• Fixed some crashes that could occur when using the EXPORTHTML script command

V9.0 Build 1004 - 8th/November/2016

• Fixed a silent error that could occur if OpenCL test launched but failed to run (eg over a remote desktop connection), now will display an error message and allow calculation of a penalised score
• Made some changes to the chart cache updating so there is a shorter timeout and the process will execute quicker if something is preventing PerformanceTest from accessing the internet to update the cache
• Fixed a crash that could occur when a gauge chart tooltip was displayed
• Changed the physics initialization when the CPU physics test is started to prevent some issues when running the physics test on with large amounts of processes
• Added number of processes used for CPU test (in PerformanceTest configuration) to html and text result exports
• Fixed a bug in the advanced network test when running server with 'Auto Repeat' not accepting connections after the first run

V9.0 Build 1003 - 19th/October/2016

• Baseline Search
  • In advanced search we made the CPU/GPU/Drive model field read only. It can now only be populated using the "Select model" hyperlink and is now an exact search. This change improved some database search times 20 fold (40secs to 2secs) and prevented some timeouts from slow searches.
  • Added a "clear" hyperlink for CPU/GPU/Drive model
  • In simple search, we improved the worst case search time 10 fold (20sec to 2sec)
• DirectX 12
  • New message box will alert user that benchmark will not run on release build of Windows 10 (build 10240), requires at least build 10586. Early Win10 releases don't have a full DX12 implmentation.
• Fixed a localisation bug with some error messages that were not displaying properly when they contained " characters
• Added better error handling for CPU physics test

V9.0 Build 1002 - 11th/October/2016

• Fixed an issue stopping the DX9 test from launching in Portrait mode and stopping the DX10/11/12 tests from running
• Some DX12 test changes to fix some startup issues
• Fixed the penalty calculation of the DX12 test so if it's run at 4k in portrait mode there is no penalty applied
• Changed error message on OpenCL (GPU Compute) test failure. Will now also calculate GPU Compute mark when OpenCL test fails but with a 25% penalty.
• The "Chart Data" and "Reference Baselines" folders from the PerformanceTest data directory are now copied to the USB drive when installing to USB
• The 'AppData', 'UserAppData' and 'UserData' folders are now created when installing to USB to improve how PerformanceTest runs from USB

V9.0 Build 1001 - 5th/October/2016

• Fixed a bug preventing the physics test from running in Windows XP
• Made some changes to the start of the CPU test while waiting for test processes to be ready in order to prevent lockups if there was an unexpected error
• Fixed a bug stopping PerformanceTest from being installed correctly to USB, this resulted in the DX12 test being unable to run and licensing error messages being displayed
• Fixed some inconsistency that could occur when picking folders using the browse for folder dialogs due to PerformanceTest trying to set the current folder displayed

V9.0 Build 1000 - 26th/September/2016

Test Changes

• New DirectX 12 test that runs at a default resolution of 4K (3840x2160). In cases where 4K resolution isn't available the score will be scaled down and the test will run at the highest available resolution.
• Removed simple DirectX 9 test from 3D test suite. This was removed as DX9 is now fairly old and the simple test wasn't putting much load on newer video cards.
• CPU extended instructions test will perform testing using sub-tests for FMA, AVX and SSE (or only those that are supported) and take the average of the 3 (or of those that are supported) for the benchmark result. FMA and AVX are new CPU instruction sets that have become available over the last few years in Intel and AMD CPUs. They were designed to make certain mathematical operations faster. Individual sub-test duration has also be adjusted to account the new sub-tests.
• CPU Physics Test and the Advanced Physics Test have been switched to use the current 'Bullet' physics engine. In the past we were using the Tokamak engine, but Tokamak is no longer maintained. While at the moment GPU acceleration isn't stable in Bullet, we hope to enable GPU acceleration in Bullet in a future patch (limited to integrated GPUs).
• 2D Graphics, added a Fonts and Text test using Direct2D. This test will launch after the original Font and Text test complete on systems that support Direct2D (Vista and higher). Direct 2D is used by most browser and some other applications for rendering text and web pages. So the new Fonts and Text test result will now be a combination of Direct2D performance and GDI performance. GDI being the traditional method if displaying text and graphics in Windows. While Microsoft advertised Direct2D as being faster than GDI, we found the opposite in most cases. Win10 did bring some Direct2D performance improvements however.
• DirectCompute (GPU Compute) tests will now run for longer based on the test duration configuration setting. The bitonic test will now run for a length of time corresponding to the duration setting, previously it was set to 100 iterations.
• Added an OpenCL test to the GPU Compute set of tests
• GPU Compute bitonic, standard test will launch two instances of bitonic test is there are 2 identical cards in the system (not running in SLI/XFire mode)
• Advanced Disk Test
  • Added sampling of individual latency results and added support for latency results plotted on the graph as a heat map.
  • New Drive IOPS Test available from "Advanced->Disk->Drive Performance..." menu option.
• Advanced Memory Test
  • NUMA is now supported where available. Settings are displayed when selecting results to graph. Exported results and graph will now include NUMA settings.
• Added DX11 Oculus Rift VR test, as an advanced test. This is currently a bit experimental and it has only had limited testing. The test is based on the existing DX11 test (the Lunar landscape test), but has been redesigned slightly to run on an Oculus Rift.
• Advanced 3D Test
  • Changed how results were displayed and will now display frame latency times. Note: Frame latency is measured from the applications point of view, so doesn't tell the whole story, as the video card can buffer or discard frames.
  • Added button for easy copy of results to clipboard
• Advanced Direct Compute (GPU Compute)
  • Renamed to GPU Compute
  • Added an OpenCL test
  • Added option for bitonic test to run on all available cards. Previously the test would only run on a single card.
• Advanced network test, added internet and transfer protocols used to test report output. Also changed the maximum block size of 256KB and set the default to 32KB. The larger block sizes result in less overhead and higher throughput.
• Advanced Visualized Physics Test
  • Now uses Bullet physics engine (see above)
  • Added a new collection of preset tests, based on the capabilities of the Bullet engine. Ragdoll, compressible objects, friction, rope simulation, etc..
  • Switched to using OpenGL3 (instead of DirectX) for rendering the scene.
  • Changed max number of shapes to be 30000 (limited by Bullet Physics)
  • Removed Overall FPS display (same as render FPS due to multithreading)
• Made some changes so GPU Compute tests are now DPI aware and should no longer automatically scale on high DPI monitors

User interface changes

• Totally new look user interface, redesigned with new charts for displaying benchmark data, your result vs the world (using all submitted baselines) and your result vs same hardware model (CPU/Video/RAM/Disk).
• Added User editable string file allowing for customisation and translation of strings used in PerformanceTest (pt_localization.txt). Nearly all menus and headings can be customised/translated by editing the text file. This will allow future localization of the software into French, Chinese, etc..
• Added option to enable/disable heat map plotting in Customization dialog (in the advanced tests)
• Added real-time temperature collection and display to main 3D window display
• In system information window physical disks are now displayed in disk number order (as opposed to the SMBIOS order)
• Added baseline drag and drop loading to main baseline information window, baselines can be dragged form windows explorer into PerformanceTest for loading.
• Added right-click menu to benchmark graphs for exporting results to clipboard/file
• Removed "Show numeric results column" from Preferences
• Temperatures are now updated after corresponding test suite has completed (eg. CPU temperatures updated after running CPU test suite, etc)
• When RAM manufacturer/part number from the SPD data is not available, use SMBIOS details instead
• Added mouse over tooltips for advanced memory graphs
• Added DPI scaling for 2D font test. Previously the test window would be tiny on high DPI displays.
• Replaced 'Upload baseline' button with checkbox that is checked by default. Checkbox is enabled only if full baseline is available and baseline has not already been uploaded.
• Replaced some icons with higher quality ones
• When running a single test a reduced size status window is now displayed
• Removed Vsync options in main preferences, will now always default to off. Script command will remain and allow it to be changed when running a script.
• Added German, French, Chinese (simplified and traditional) translation

Misc

• Scripting, added REPORTSUMMARYHTML script keyword to output report in HTML format when using the LOOPS command
• Scripting, added optional parameter SINGLELINE to commands EXPORTCSV, EXPORTTEXT for outputting the computer's system information and results to one line
• Added shortened operations descriptions to CSH/HTML/TXT exports (eg M/ops, Mb/s, Fps, etc)
• Added error message when the number of selected baselines cannot fit on one page when printing
• Added error message when saving results to image fails due to the image file height being too large (eg too many selected baselines)
• Added a warning message when submitting a baseline if different video card names were detected as being tested. This is to alert the user and try to prevent situations in systems with low power/high power video cards using the low power card in some tests
• Support for new CPUs and better identification of AMD graphics card (some AMD card have never identified themselves correctly and only refer to themselves as 'Series 200' or the like).
• Added export function to export results and graphs to HTML file from drive performance
• Changed an error message when then DirectX12 test could not be launched
• Added a delay before launching 3D tests when running a script and using their single test command to prevent monitor resolution switching occurring too quickly and causing errors
• Scripts will now exit and no longer continue to run if an error occurs during the SETDISK command
• Changed the behaviour of the Dx9 and DX10 when run from a script, previously they would run for much longer than the duration used for SETDURATION
• Added network drives to Advanced Disk -> Drive Performance disk selection
• Changed scripted CSV output to always print test names and results, if no result recorded then output N/A, to allow for easier combination of results from multiple machines
• Added option to 'Clear chart cache' in Preferences window. All .xml files under ProgramData\Passmark\PerformanceTest9\ChartData\ are deleted.
• Added a check for Nvidia G-Sync, if detected (and if result seems to be capped at a framerate between 54 and 60) will block basline submission until G-Sync is turned off and 3D tests re-run
• Changed how script files are processed to better handle the loop command

Bug Fixes

• Fixed some places where files were saved to the local user directories instead of the executable directory when running with command line parameter /p (eg not saving to USB drive as expected)
• Fixed a bug in the memory read cached test where the buffer size used was in steps from 16KB to 148KB instead of 16KB to 8MB. Test results in this test will now be slightly lower than they were as a result.
• Fixed baseline search in baseline manager where searches of turbo speed 5001MHz+ were not working correctly
• Fixed a bug in the Advanced Direct Compute bitonic test where the displayed results were being calculated incorrectly
• Added some checks to try and avoid a situation where a graphics driver crash could cause an abnormally high Direct2D result
• Fixed a crash when running Direct Compute test
• Now closing DirectIO.sys library when PT exists to stop the .sys file being in use until automatically closed. This should avoid an error some people saw on installation that the DirectIO.sys was locked and couldn't be overwritten.
• Fixed incorrect values for average speed + data transferred when exporting results from the advanced network test
• Fixed crash in advanced network test if test was started without server being available.
• Fixed a bug where the ADT_SETEXPORT graph settings were not being read correctly and the graph type was not changing
• Fixed a bug where DX11 test would often pick a low refresh rate (eg 24hz)
• Fixed a bug where the "raw disk read" options for the advanced CD/DVD test was unavailable in windows versions newer than XP
• Fixed some CSV output so "," characters in CPU names no longer break the formatting

Test Score Scaling

• Added 6.5% scale down of CPU Mark so PT9 results are closer to PT8 results, to compensate for the increased scores in the Extended Instructions and Physics test changes.
• So the PT8 CPUMark should be broadly comparable to the PT9 CPUMark. Same for the overall PassMark rating. Still, when possible, for improved accuracy, compare PT9 results to PT9 results and PT8 results to PT8 results.
• DX12 test score is penalised if it cannot be run at the desired 4K (3840x2160) resolution. Running at lower resolution increases the frame rate. So the scaling compensates for this.
• The weighting of the 3D tests was changed due to the removal of the DX9 simple test and the addition of the DX12 test. The DX9 (complex) test is now weighted lower than the other tests (approx. 25% less). Systems that cannot run the DX12 test will received a 20% penalty to the overall 3D mark score.

V8.0 Build 1054 - 17th/June/2016

• Fixed a bug that was causing advanced baseline searches to time out
• Added some new checks for disk caching software

V8.0 Build 1053 - 9th/December/2015

• Work around was made to avoid abnormally high Direct2D benchmark results if the graphics card driver crashed during the test. Some versions of Intel's video driver would crash with message "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered". Switching to the Mircosoft supplied video driver also fixed the problem.
• Fixed a bug in the Advanced DirectCompute bitonic test where the displayed results could be calculated incorrectly
• Updated system information library
  • Added support for Intel Xeon Broadwell-E CPU
  • Fixed Intel Burst mode frequency measurement (it should be noted that Burst mode it not the same as Turbo mode)

V8.0 Build 1052 - 22nd/October/2015

• Updated system information library to recognise SLI and Xfire
• Added SLI field to baselines and info display
• Fixed a crash that could occur on some Intel GMA 3150 / 945 express graphics systems

V8.0 Build 1051 - 6th/August/2015

• Added support for Windows 10 and option to select Windows 10 when searching for baselines
• Updated system information library
  • Fixed an issue where graphics cards with large amounts of memory were being displayed as having 4GB only
  • Support added for Intel Skylake CPUs

V8.0 Build 1050 - 2nd/July/2015

• System Information updates - Added support for AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, R9 390X, R9 390, R9 380, R9 M375, R9 M370X, R7 370
• Fixed a error message displayed when using the auto launch command line parameter /a and not specifying an initialisation file

V8.0 Build 1049 - 17th/June/2015

• When submitting a baseline removed the need for a 3D mark to be included before submission to make it easier for server style setups with low power video cards to submit baselines

V8.0 Build 1048 - 15th/June/2015

• Fixed a bug on some systems with multiple CPUs where the correct number of CPU test threads was not starting
• Fixed a crash that could happen in the DX11 test

V8.0 Build 1047 - 28th/April/2015

• Changed advanced baseline searches so they should be faster when switching between pages of results
• Added a default "no sorting" option for advanced baseline search to speed up searches
• Fixed a bug with the cursor not always redrawing correctly immediately after a baseline search finishes
• Changed simple search to report "X baselines found" when < 100 or "Showing first 100 baselines" when more are found as we are no longer counting them to increase the speed of the search
• Added a check and removal of BOM when loading a customised key.dat file (file expected to be in unicode UTF-16LE format)
• Fixed broken parsing of pt.ini file when using /a command line options, pt.ini will be read in ascii or unicode (UTF-16LE) format
• System Information updates
  • Added support for AMD HD 8690A
  • Updated CPU specification information,aAdded Intel Cherry Trail, Braswell and Knights Landing, newer Intel Haswell and Broadwell CPU's, newer AMD CPUs.
  • Added Intel Bay trail temperature monitoring.

V8.0 Build 1046 - 11th/March/2015

• Baseline Manager basic Search will now require the user specify a field (CPU / Video / Drive / Motherboard / Description) to search
• Baseline Manager, an Empty Advanced Search (with the Default Options) will result in showing the last day of submissions
• Fixed a crash that could happen when reading in the windows experience performance values in win 8

V8.0 Build 1045 - 27th/January/2015

• Fixed a bug where the "Save baseline" menu item was opening the "Export results as image" dialog

V8.0 Build 1044 - 23rd/January/2015

• Added option to display temperature as Celsius or Fahrenheit
• Made some changes so on some systems with dual Intel/AMD video cards the correct card is displayed in the results
• System Information updates
  • Added support for AMD Radeon R9 285, AMD Radeon HD 7730
• Fixed a bug in the "Install to USB" function that would stop the install process when the USB drive ran out of space but didn't display an error message
• Fixed some incorrect tool tips in the File menu

V8.0 Build 1043 - 18th/December/2014

• Changed the memory information displayed on the memory tab when a test has just been run for "This computer" to match the summary and system information displays
• Fixed a bug with the script command REPORTSUMMARY where if no file path was entered the file was not being created in the default user directory
• Fixed a display bug where on systems that had no CD drive connected an overly large result would be displayed when trying to run the CD test
• System Information updates
  • Added support for AMD R9 280
  • Fixed possible crash due to size of string buffer not being big enough for certain DDR3/DDR4 attributes
  • Fixed a crash if a localisation string failed to load

V8.0 Build 1042 - 28th/October/2014

• Added motherboard model name (where available) to PassMark rating information on summary tab
• Made a change so scripts will now process environment variables used for the EXECUTE command
• Replaced reference baseline #5 with a different system due to higher than normal 2D and memory results
• Replaced reference baseline #6 with a higher end system to match current hardware
• System Information updates
  • Improved Bay trail supported (Corrected the number of L1 and L2 CPU caches on Bay Trail CPU's, CPU frequency display improvements)
  • Intel Silvermont CPU support added
  • Added custom names for AMD A10/A8/A6 integrated cards (eg AMD Radeon R7 A10-7850k)
  • Added support for AMD Radeon HD 8xxxD/7xxxD/6xxxD/8400/8330/6320 video cards
• Fixed a bug in the advanced disk test where the data randomness value was being flipped each edit (eg 100 - 0)
• Fixed a possible crash that could occur in the DX10 test if some required resources became invalid

V8.0 Build 1041 - 25th/September/2014

• The video card / RAM / disk / CPU tested should now be displayed next to the "This computer" and local baseline names on the results tabs
• Fixed a bug where on some switchable graphics systems (eg Optimus) the video card used was not always displayed next to the baseline number when viewing the 2D and 3D results
• Changed behaviour when PerformanceTest is gathering video card information so it should now display some NVIDIA video cards that were previously hidden. This applies to SLI systems where only one monitor was connected and to Optimus systems.

V8.0 Build 1040 - 18th/September/2014

• Added a PNP Device ID display for graphics cards in the 3D information view
• Changed behaviour on systems with multiple video cards (switchable graphics/SLI/XFire), previously PT might not always display the video card in the system information if they did not have a monitor attached
• Fixed a printing issue caused by the previous high DPI changes

V8.0 Build 1039 - 10th/September/2014

• Some system information updates which enable better DDR4 and Haswell-E support

V8.0.Build 1038 - 29th/August/2014

• Updated system information collection to support Intel broadwell and next generation of Intel Xeon Processor Family based on Haswell
• Enabled "DPI aware" option for manifest file so PT will work correctly in windows 8 high DPI (QHD+) resolutions
• Updated the DX9 3D tests to correctly display information text on high DPI displays
• Replaced several instances of "Mhz" with "MHz" in baseline display text
• Fixed a rounding display error for RAM values in the baseline manager
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to start 2 advanced 3D test windows at the same time which caused PT to crash
• Fixed a bug where scaling of fonts was not happening correctly on QHD+ high DPI displays
• Fixed a bug where incorrect resolution could be displayed on QHD+ high DPI displays in system information
• Fixed a crash that could occur when collecting memory SPD information at startup

V8.0.Build 1037 - 25th/July/2014

• Added check for AMD powerxpress to try and correctly detect AMD graphics cards in dual card laptops
• Added support for AMD R5 M230, R5 M255, R7 M260, R7 M265, R9 M275X, R9 M265X, R9 M270X, R9 M290
• Added DDR4 SPD decoding
• Increased timeout when using the simple search option in baseline management to prevent an issue where no results were being returned

V8.0.Build 1036 - 20th/June/2014

• Fixed a library error that was preventing PerformanceTest from running in Windows XP

V8.0.Build 1035 - 17th/June/2014

• Added a warning on startup when using a "Power saver" power plan
• Added Atom NXXXX Temperature monitoring
• Added AMD R9 295X2 and R7 260 support
• Fixed an issue where in some cases systems were not displaying all their installed RAM modules correctly (more noticeable in systems with >16 RAM slots)

V8.0.Build 1034 - 7th/May/2014

• Added a missing localisation text file to the install package, this was causing some system information to be displayed without formatting
• Made a change to fix an issue on some systems where more RAM modules were displayed than was installed in the 3D main window graphic
• Made some changes to how the DX10 test starts to try and avoid some situations where the test will display a blank window and not start the fullscreen test (in multiple monitor situations mainly) until there was some user input (eg a moving the mouse)
• Made some changes to detect and fix invalid baselines when downloading them
• Fixed a bug with baseline date filtering where the "To" date was not being set properly and was using the current date
• Fixed a bug with baseline date filtering where the "To" date was being set to the "From" date when re-opening the "Date & sorting" dialog

V8.0.Build 1033 - 24th/April/2014

• Fixed a crash (bluescreen) that could occur in the 32bit version when reading system information
• Partitions on hard disks with 4KB sectors can now be tested in the advanced disk test, previously only the raw device was displayed.

V8.0.Build 1032 - 3rd/April/2014

• Changed behaviour of the DX10 test so it should pick the primary adapter and monitor when mutiple monitors are connected to multiple video cards
• Fixed a crash that could occcur on startup when running in a virtual machine.

V8.0.Build 1031 - 11th/March/2014

• Added 4MB and 8MB block sizes to the advanced disk test
• Added SETMEMTIMEOUT script command to allow the threaded memory test timeout length to be changed
• Fixed a bug that could occur when reading memory information which could cause a crash
• Fixed a bug where if an invalid motherboard serial number was written to the baseline file the saved file could not be re-opened

V8.0.Build 1030 - 18th/February/2014

• PerformanceTest should now distinguish between Windows 8 and 8.1 in the system information
• Baseline manager will now display baseline scores with a decimal point. As this value is also used for sorting the displayed list it also fixes a bug where baselines separated by a decimal value (eg 100.0 and 100.1) were being displayed in the wrong order.
• Baseline manager will now check baseline creation time with the time stored in the baseline cache file (baseline.cfg). If the file in disk is more than 30 mins newer than the cache entry the cache is updated. Previously overwriting a file in "My Baselines" would not update the score listed in the baseline manager.
• Fixed an error that would be displayed if a baseline had an invalid temperature value stored in it.

V8.0.Build 1029 - 14th/January/2014

• Disabled baseline uploading when Samsung RAPID service is detected and the disk test has been run on a Samsung hard drive (the tests can still be run but the results cannot be uploaded)
• Disabled mouse and keyboard input for the duration of the 2D tests to precent windows being minimised
• Fixed some rounding errors to could cause frame rates when PerformanceTest was first starting to be displayed incorrectly
• Added support for some AMD 8700M/8800M video cards and updated System information library

V8.0.Build 1028 - 8th/January/2014

• Fixed a bug where in some cases the calculated overall 3D graphics mark was lower than it should have been, this mainly affected Intel integrated video cards.
  This would only happen if the DX10 test failed to start but would start on a second instance, in these cases a penalty was applied as if it had no DX10 compatible video card, despite running the test (related to the changes made in v8.0 build 1024).
• Updated system information library: Added support for RAM modules on Supermicro server boards, SMBus support for Intel X79 Express Chipset, Fixed incorrect memory size reported for RAM modules > 32GB, AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 6xx socket type corrected.

V8.0.Build 1027 - 9th/December/2013

• Added support for AMD R9 290, 270 and R7 250 video cards
• Fixed a possible crash when retrieving hard disk information

V8.0.Build 1026 - 28th/October/2013

• Added support for AMD R9/R7 series video cards
• Added some extra detail to error messages when trying to run the 3D tests and monitor is in portrait mode

V8.0.Build 1025 - 10th/October/2013

• Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to start the advanced disk test when PerformanceTest had not finished collecting system information
• Updated system information library with numerous CPU updates: Ivy Bridge-E, Silvermont, Bay Trail, Cloverview, Richland, Kabini, Temash, Delhi, Seoul, Abu Dhabi, Kyoto, AMD Family 16h (Kabini).
• Added icon to desktop when installing

V8.0.Build 1024 - 27th/August/2013

• Fixed a bug where on systems with Intel HD4600 graphics the DX10 test might not start first time and skip without an error message displayed, though a second attempt would start correctly.

V8.0.Build 1023 - 20th/August/2013

• CPU information and temperature updates: Added support for Cloverview, Richland, Kabini, Temash, Delhi, Seoul, Abu Dhabi, Kyoto.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to launch the DirectCompute test from the advanced menu when no compatible video card was available
• If the number of processes is changed in the preferences to be more than the default amount for the system then the test duration can now only be set to "very long" so score accuracy is increased
• Increased "very long" test time in preferences from 15 seconds to 20 seconds

V8.0.Build 1022 - 20th/June/2013

• Fixed a number of bugs in the system information gathering introduced in the previous release.

V8.0.Build 1021 - 14th/June/2013

• Added support for Haswell CPUs.
• Improved support for Atom CPUs.
• Added CPU turbo speed filter to advanced search.
• Fixed a bug causing the text export to print gibberish when the system information exceeded 512 characters.

V8.0.Build 1020 - 23rd/April/2013

• Fixed bug with Intel 9.18.10.3071 drivers (and possibly others) preventing loading of DirectX 9 DLLs causing PerformanceTest to incorrectly report that it has a corrupt install.
• Fixed bug where the CD test did not update the status window.
• Display details about total results found in basic search window.
• Disable wait icon after search in baseline search windows without user having to move mouse.
• Added baseline ID search to advanced search options.
• Fixed bug on some systems where extra RAM modules would be displayed.

V8.0.Build 1019 - 9th/April/2013

• Fixed crash when running the CPU tests on some systems.
• Fixed crash attempting to use /a automation command line parameters in trial version.
• Rotated video card model on main screen to point outwards from motherboard.
• Possbile bug fix for DirectX10 test on some Windows 8 systems.

V8.0.Build 1018 - 14th/March/2013

• Fixed crash bug introduced in build 1017 that affected 32-bit systems with Windows 7 or later.

V8.0.Build 1017 - 12th/March/2013

• Fixed bug preventing correct testing of more than 64 logical processors. In previous releases we relied on the O/S to distribute processes evenly between processor groups. It turns out this doesn't always work & we had to write code to explicitly assign processes to groups of CPUs to get a better load distrubution.
• Bug fixes for DirectX 10 test relating to failure to enter full screen mode. This warning message has been removed (after beening added in build 1016). But in it's place is a better (automatic) method of selecting the best monitor in a multi-GPU multi-monitor setup. We hope this will prevent some problems getting into full screen mode.
• Fixed flashing splash screen at startup.

V8.0.Build 1016 - 18th/February/2013

• Fixed crash when trying to save baseline.
• Stopped DirectX 11 test falling back to software rendering mode.
• Changed DirectX 10 test to abort if it failed to initialize fullscreen mode.
• Fixed a bug preventing the advanced disk test from doing raw access.

V8.0.Build 1015 - 8th/February/2013

• Fixed a bug incorrectly identifying bad system clock measurements.
• Fixed a bug causing a failure to save which drive was tested for later viewing in the graphs.

V8.0.Build 1014 - 6th/February/2013

• Fixed a bug causing the DirectX 10 test to crash when the primary desktop monitor was not monitor 1.

V8.0.Build 1013 - 25th/January/2013

• Memory latency test now also updated to run more reliably on system with limited memory.
• Added error case to DirectX 11 test to detect and warn user about erroneous results.

V8.0.Build 1012 - 18th/January/2013

• Fixed crash bug introduced with previous memory changes for systems with limited memory.

V8.0.Build 1011 - 17th/January/2013

• Fixed bug causing a crash when running a script using the /s command and the system did not support 3D, or the 3D was turned off using the /NO3D option.
• Made change to make memory tests more likely to succeed on systems with limited memory.
• Made change to threaded memory test to allow give it a greater chance to complete on very slow systems.
• Added warning at start up if system is running on battery power.

V8.0.Build 1010 - 27th/December/2012

• Fixed problem with rendering water in DirectX9 - Complex test on Intel cards.
• Added frame jitter measurement in advanced 3D test.
• Updated identification for some newer Radeon cards.

V8.0.Build 1009 - 11th/December/2012

• Changed DirectX9 tests to allow them to run on systems that don't support any anti-aliasing. Previously anti-aliasing was required to launch the test. Now the test will launch but a 25% penalty will be applied to the benchmark result to make up for the poor quality 3D rendering. This means the older Intel HD graphics CPU/GPUs can now run the DX9 test (e.g. the i3-530 CPU).
• Now show number of logical processors for all CPUs, rather than just Hyperthreading status for Intel CPUs. This will also mean that some AMD CPUs like the AMD FX-8120, 8350, 8150 will display 4 cores (and 2 logicals per core), rather than 8 cores.

V8.0.Build 1008 - 30th/November/2012

• Fixed bug introduced in build 1007 preventing information about the motherboard being correctly gathered.
• Improved detection of some AMD video cards.
• Fixed display bug in advanced search when 0 baselines were found.

V8.0.Build 1007 - 23rd/November/2012

• Fixed bug causing splash screen to remain open on some Windows 8 systems.
• Fixed bug misidentifying the hard drive tested on some systems preventing baseline from being uploaded.
• Removed temperature detection of AMD video cards on 32-bit systems as this was causing a crash.
• Fixed bug trying to load baseline files from previous versions using the 'File->Load Baseline' menu option.
• Reduced start-up time on some older CPU models.

V8.0.Build 1006 - 7th/November/2012

• Fixed DirectX9 tests to work with some older video cards (GeForce FX 5000 series and similar)
• Fixed bug causing current, min & max transfer rates in the advanced network test incorrectly showing average rather than instantaneous speeds.
• Advanced network test now shows the average speed at the end of the test, where the current speed was while the test was running.
• Fixed a crash when viewing disk results and certain disk related system information had failed to be gathered correctly.

V8.0.Build 1005 - 2nd/November/2012

• Added some extra command line parameters to selectively disable certain parts of the system information gathering.
• Fixed crash that occurred when trying to use the /s flag in shareware mode.
• Fixed a crash on some systems that occurred after running any of the tests.
• Improved startup performance slightly on some systems.
• Changed installer so that PerformanceTest doesn't automatically launch when installing in silent mode.
• Added server 2012 to list of OS options in advanced baseline search.

V8.0.Build 1004 - 22nd/October/2012

• Fixed expiry of certain features after 30 days even when using a licensed version of the software.
• Fixed bug with the USB install that prevented the DirectX 11 test from being run.

V8.0.Build 1003 - 18th/October/2012

• Added minimum and maximum speed display for Advanced Network Test.
• Fixed bug with the USB install that prevented the 3D tests from running from a USB drive.
• Fixed resource leak.
• Fixed crash in the Advanced Disk Test when using RAM drives.
• Added ability to disable temperature gathering from command line using SAFETEMP flag. (Can help if a crash is seen on start-up)

V8.0.Build 1002 - 12th/October/2012

• Fixed resource leak introduced with last release that caused instability after prolonged usage.

V8.0.Build 1001 - 12th/October/2012

• Fixed bug causing results to not display with certain Windows settings.
• Fixed crash at startup when a SoftPerfect RAM disk is active on the system.
• Fixed a bug that application instability after having opened the advanced CD/DVD window.
• Re-implemented SAFEMODE flag for V8, significantly reduces the amount of tasks performed at application startup.
• Fixed a caching issue with the new version check.
• Fixed a bug that caused scripting to freeze when reaching the DirectCompte tests.

V8.0.Build 1000 - 9th/October/2012

• New Single threaded CPU test and corresponding chart.
• New Direct 2D graphic test. Direct 2D is the relatively new hardware accelerated, immediate-mode, 2D graphics API from Microsoft. It requires Vista SP2 or above to work.
• New DirectX 11 3D test. To run this test a video card with DirectX 11.0 support is required, along with Vista SP2 or above as the O/S. This test exercises new video card features like Vertex and Pixel Shader 5.0 effects, Unordered transparency techniques (in the Jellyfish) and Tessellation technique to produce the detail in the terrain
• New DirectCompute benchmark test as part of standard GPU/3D tests. DirectX 11.0 video card support is required for some of the DirectCompute tests. Thanks to Jan Vlietinck & Keenan Crane who wrote some of the code we used in this test.
• New DirectCompute advanced test suite.
• New memory latency test, both as a standard test and advanced test.
• Re-written standard RAM tests in assembler to be less CPU dependent and more RAM dependent. We are also going to be making available some RAM performance charts
• Advanced tests for Blu-ray & DVD burning on Windows 7 and later.
• Ability to automatically run tests multiple times and take the max result.
• Improved advanced disk test. It is now possible to specify the level of randomness in the data, which can be useful for testing drives that compress the data.
• Scripting of the advanced disk test is now possible.
• Ability to run network test for a much longer period of time.
• IPv6 support in network test.
• Improved system information. Include RAM stick model and timing info, CPU temp & more.
• Re-balancing of instruction mix in the Integer maths, floating point maths and prime number tests.
• Encryption test now makes use of AES-NI CPU instructions where available.
• Faster start-up on launch despite additional system information collection.
• Better looking graphs / new charting engine in advanced tests. Can now graph multiple data series and customize the look of the graphs
• Support for testing more than 64 CPUs / cores.
• Better baseline search, both for basic and advanced search.
• Combining of baseline management windows, adding bookmarks, etc..
• User interface updates with 3D models.
• New baseline file format. We are now using the ".ptx" file name extension for PT8 baseline files. New format is effectively compressed YAML. It should be much more extensible than the older binary file format.
• New backend database structure for storing results. This was required as we expecting to get to around a million baseline results next year.
• Each uploaded result now gets a web page that displays the summary of the submitted results.
• Better video card model number detection, especially dual cards and Intel HD GPU.
• Removed the old bouncing balls 3D test as it was looking a bit lame.
• Modified the existing DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 3D tests to have better textures, use better models and improved shaders.
• Improved SLI & Crossfire support. SLI & Crossfire should now produce some performance improvements. We would have liked to do more here but nVidia and AMD were not able to provide any assistance.
• Official Windows 8 support.
• Official Windows Server 2012 beta support, with full support upon the Server 2012 release.
• Combining 32bit and 64bit releases into a single install package. The correct executable is autoselected at install time.
• Faster install after download by removal of some install dependences.
• More options for exporting, and copy / pasting the benchmark data into other applications, like Excel.
• As an experiment we are relaxing 30 day trial period, so that the core function can continue to be evaluated beyond 30 days. So rather than it just stop working after 30 days, the software will continue to run, with cut down functionality
• Bug fixes, of course.

V7.0.Build 1031 - 21st/August/2012

• Fixed an issue where some system information wasn't being correctly gathered on XP.
• Fixed an issue displaying the wrong OS in the baseline management window.

V7.0.Build 1030 - 7th/July/2012

• Fixed a bug in the 32-bit version of PerformanceTest preventing gathering of certain system information.
• Some minor changed/improvements to the advanced baseline search window.

V7.0.Build 1029 - 26th/April/2012

• Faster startup on some older CPU models.
• Improved support for Ivy-Bridge and Xeon E7 processors.
• Correct identification of Windows 8.

V7.0.Build 1028 - 23rd/March/2012

• Improvement for overclocking detection on some AMD Llano CPUs.
• Added correct identification of Radeon HD 7700 and 7800 series cards.
• Fixed possible crash when populating baseline information list.

V7.0.Build 1027 - 20th/February/2012

• Further improvements to CPU speed detection for AMD FX and 'A8/6/4' series.
• In the system information the display of turbo clock speed was changed from being measured clock speed in Mhz to theoretical max clock speed. Measured clock speed can be less than Max due to thermal issues.

V7.0.Build 1026 - 7th/February/2012

• Improved CPU detection on several newer AMD and Intel CPU models.
• Added detection for Radeon 7970 and 7950.
• Fixed a bug with detection of some older Radeon cards.
• Possible fix for an intermittent crash in the full screen planes test.
• Possible fix for crash bug in version check dialogue.

V7.0.Build 1025 - 24th/September/2011

• Fixed bug preventing some systems from running CPU tests.

V7.0.Build 1024 - 15th/August/2011

• Fix for flashing main window. Not confirmed to work with all system configurations.

V7.0.Build 1023 - 29th/July/2011

• Fixed a lockup when trying to do a disk test on a drive without enough space.
• Fixed a bug that would allow 2d results to go negative.
• Added warning when running 32-bit PT on 64-bit Windows
• Added AMD A series CPUs to the advanced baseline search.

V7.0.Build 1022 - 4/May/2011

• Minor improvements in detection of newer Intel CPUs.
• Now displays PT build and architecture in baseline information.
• Minor clarification about score weightings added to help file.

V7.0.Build 1021 - 10/February/2011

• Improved support of Intel Sandy Bridge processors.
• Fixed bug in advanced disk test that was causing the random seeking to not use the entirety of the test area in some cases.

V7.0.Build 1020 - 5/January/2011

• Fixed the visualized physics test image mode, which was broken.
• Improved CPU information gathering on VIA cpus.
• Improved CPU speed detection on overclocked Core 2 systems.
• Added detection for several Radeon graphics card types.

V7.0.Build 1019 - 27/October/2010

• Fixed a number of resource leaks that were causing PerformanceTest to become unstable after several hours of sustained usage.
• Improved a 3D test error message to give more information about the error.
• Added detection for Radeon 6850 and 6870 video cards.

V7.0.Build 1018 - 24/August/2010

• The string sort test had mistakenly been changed to be sorting strings 250 characters long instead of 25 characters. This occurred in build 1015 but went unnoticed until 1017. This change has been reverted. Any string tests run on versions 1015, 1016 or 1017 have degraded results.
• An issue preventing the CPU tests from running on Windows XP 64-bit has been resolved.

V7.0.Build 1017 - 18/August/2010

• Minor fix to SMBIOS data collection, can now collect data from a wider range of SMBIOS versions.
• Added detection for failed 2D tests where there was no display to render the test to. This has been seen when running PT via remote desktop and then closing the remote desktop window while the tests are running.
• Fixed crash on Windows 7 with advanced CD test when trying to write CDs. CD Write test is not supported on Vista/Win7.
• Improved CPU information gathering, in particular for AMD CPUs with Turbo Core technology.
• Increased timeout duration on CPU tests. The String Sorting test can be slow to exit and on some lower end systems this
  test would timeout resulting in no score being given.
• Fixed truncation of filename in baseline info window.

V7.0.Build 1016 - 30/July/2010

• Fixed 3D DX10 Test bug that could cause a crash on certain systems (seen on some systems with dual Xeon CPUs on 64bit Window).
• Pentium/Celeron M CPU speed detection improved.
• Refined memory limits on Visualised Physics Test and improved out of memory error case handling. Should be much harder to crash the application now when using this tool. As a result however the limits may now be lower on some systems, especially 32-bit systems.
• Fixed problem where copied system information was missing newlines when pasted into certain applications, in particular Notepad.
• Allowed use of Return key in the license key text entry field for entering new lines. However, it is still recommended that users copy and paste license keys rather than trying to type them manually.

V7.0.Build 1015 - 6/July/2010

• Improved Advanced Memory Test. The tests were optimized to be tighter loops and should now return higher bandwidth results, making the steps from level 1 to level 2 cache to main RAM much more obvious.
• Improved CPU Speed Detection on newer CPUs with turbo mode. Should provide a better indication of if a machine is overclocked than in previous builds.
• Fixed corrupt icon graphics in system tab when the software was running on high DPI displays.
• Fixed possible rare DX9 3D test crash in the "complex 3D test" were the test might crash after completion, during cleanup.
• There was a suspected out of memory crash fixed. We suspect some people forced a high number of CPU test threads on low end systems. The number of test threads is now limited by available RAM. 50MB of RAM is now required per test thread, (after the initial 2 threads).
• Added a function to collect mini-dumps in the case of crashes. This should make it easier to diagnose faults if people can send us the mini dumps.

V7.0.Build 1014 - 27/May/2010

• Fixed Advanced RAW low level disk write test. As the Advanced RAW test destroys the existing data on the disk, the test will now only work on unformatted drives. If you need to run this test on a formatted drive, you need to manually remove the partitions first.
• Fixed bug where the last data point of the advanced disk export would be printed twice
• Fixed minor text error in HTML export
• Added PT Version to HTML Export
• Fixed bug where PT would disable Turbo Mode on some Intel CPUs and not Re-enable it when done
• Fixed bug where new windows would sometimes open on wrong monitor

V7.0.Build 1013 - 15/March/2010

• Added i3 to list of searchable CPU types in advanced baseline search
• Fixed install to USB bug where CSS directory was not copied
• Fixed problem where user could launch multiple client network tests at once
• Fixed crash when trying to run advanced physics test without being able to render a 3D environment
• Improved SMBIOS information gathering

V7.0.Build 1012 14/January/2010
Patch Release

• Fixed bad reporting with more than 10 ram modules, only the first 10 modules will now be reported
• Fixed incorrect value being exported for random string sorting in advanced multiple process test
• Fixed loading of Pre-V6 baselines in the 64-bit version of PerformanceTest
• Fixed blue screen crashes on certain CPUs when running Windows Server 2008
• Fixed crash on start up on some systems with a large number of RAM modules (> 10 modules populated in SMBIOS)
• Better support for detection of CPU speed on new 32nm i3 and i5 CPUs with turbo mode

V7.0.Build 1011 10/November/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed a blue screen crash that affected certain CPU models

V7.0.Build 1010 29/October/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed bug showing Windows 7 baselines as Vista baselines in baseline selection window
• Allowed full results to be generated on DX10 systems without 4x AA
• Fixed program crashing when loading pre version 6 baselines
• Improved identification of some newer ATI Graphics Cards
• Added description of /p option to help file

V7.0.Build 1009 6/October/2009
Patch Release

• Improved CPU Information gathering, in particular for the core i5
• Also improved CPU speed detection
• Fixed issue in Win7 when using multiple monitors and running the 3D tests
• Added i5 to list of CPUs in advanced baseline search window
• Updated help file with better CPU test descriptions and correct 2D scripting commands

V7.0.Build 1008 9/September/2009
Patch Release

• Better core detection for i5 Processor
• Better DDR3 detection
• Better warning message for a known issue with complex full screen 3D test on Win7 with dual monitors

V7.0.Build 1006 6/July/2009
Patch Release

• Included Help files when installing to USB
• Better CPU clock speed measurement
• Fixed bug loading baselines in local folder twice when using /p
• Changed error 5 from error to warning in DX10 test on Win7
• Fixed a few misleading error messages

V7.0.Build 1006 12/May/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed "Find Same CPU" not working for certain CPU types.
• Stopped welcome window reopening at certain points when running in evaluation mode.

V7.0.Build 1005 16/April/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed DX10 test to work on videocards that do not support 8x AA
• Changed Passmark Rating calculation so that CD scores have a smaller impact and can only ever increase the overall score

V7.0.Build 1004 26/March/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed a bug that allowed uploading of incomplete baselines.
• Fixed a bug that was causing some types of old AMD CPUs to get extremely high scores.

V7.0.Build 1003 19/March/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed a possible crash in the Medium/Complex 3D test.
• Fixed an error in reporting the transfer speed in the advanced network test.

V7.0.Build 1002 4/March/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed an error when running licensed from USB Drive.

V7.0.Build 1001 4/March/2009
Patch Release

• Fixed crash on some systems when opening "print" menu option.
• Fixed baselines info not displaying when selecting for display from the web download interface.
• Fixed OS lacking 32/64-bit info in baseline search.
• Fixed problem with installing a licensed copy of PT to a USB drive.

V7.0.Build 1000 25/February/2009
Major Release

• New DirectX 10 3D Test (Requires Windows Vista and a DirectX 10 compatible video card)
• Large improvements to the user interface, including near completely reworked main window.
• Can now view the system information from multiple baselines simultaneously.
• streamlined baseline selection dialogue
• Increased the default size of the main window to go along with the graphical improvements.
• Improved baseline search functionality.
• Removed almost all restrictions in the trial version.
• Increased the amount of system information gathered and displayed.
• Improved copy options for quickly getting system information from PT to the clipboard.
• /p option added to use the application directory instead of the user directory
• Added EXPORTBASELINE script option to export .pt file
• Overhauled most of the 2D test suite. Complex Vector tests and Image filtering tests now included.
• Changed fonts and text test to have text which is more representative of a real document.
• Increased intensity of "Windows Interface" test.
• Increased the resolution at which 2d and 3d graphics tests are run to place more load on the video card.
• Prime numbers test optimised.
• String sorting test intensified to use more memory.
• Image rotation test was moved from the CPU suite and added as part of the image filters in the 2D suite to show what is happening.
• Added CPU Physics simulation test
• Added Visualised Physics Test to advanced test suite. This is a customizable 3D representation of what the new physics CPU test is doing.
• Increased unchached memory test from 4MB to 64MB as many CPU's have 4MB caches now.
• Updated image export functionality.
• Install to USB drive menu function.
• Changed Passmark Rating calculation to limit the effect of a single extremely fast system component.

V6.1.Build 1018 22/September/2008
Patch release

• Correction to a rare crash bug when saving a report or doing a HDD benchmark (when a physical disk is numbered greater
  than 3).
• ATOM CPU Hyperthreading and number of CPU's detection added.
• CPU model number changed to include extended model information for newer CPU's.
• CPU L2 cache sizes for newer Intel CPU models added.
• Debug logging increased for CPU detection.
• A startup problem for an unreleased CPU corrected.

V6.1.Build 1017 12/May/2008
Patch release

• Removed some debug information to better reflect performance in particular Virtual environments.

V6.1.Build 1016 1/May/2008
Patch release

• Improved the disk tests for compressed disk volumes.
• Improved the CPU frequency measurement introduced in PerformanceTest v6.1.1013 for certain newer Intel CPU's.
• Corrected a bug where PerformanceTest V4.0 baseline files could not be loaded into PerformanceTest v6.1.
• Corrected a crash bug on startup for a rare BIOS configuration.

V6.1.Build 1015 16/Apr/2008
Patch release

• Corrected a crash bug on startup for a rare BIOS configuration.

V6.1.Build 1014 2/Apr/2008
Patch release

• Corrected a bug introduced in v6.1.1013 where the default number of CPU test processes was 1, rather than the number of CPU's. This resulted in much lower CPU scores if this default was not changed .
  

V6.1.Build 1013 27/Mar/2008
Patch release

• Changed the startup of PerformanceTest to better support Virtual environments like VMWare.
• Changed the mechanism to calculate the current CPU frequency as newer Intel CPU's (e.g. Core 2 Duo) that have been overclocked by lowered their bus speed multiplier may reflect a speed based on a higher bus speed multiplier. This does not impact the CPU benchmark scores.

V6.1.Build 1012 26/Feb/2008
Patch release

• Implemented a work around for the error "the procedure entry point IsUserAnAdmin could not be located in the dynamic link library shell32.dll". This occurred on systems with old versions of shell32.dll.

V6.1.Build 1011 28/Jan/2008
Patch release

• Added searching for online baselines for AMD Phenom and Intel Core 2 Extreme.
• Removed the restriction of only allowing a single instance of PerformanceTest to run at one time. This allows multiple Advanced Network tests to be run concurrently.
• Minor changes to license management.

V6.1.Build 1010 4/Dec/2007
Patch release

• Corrected the Multitasking test to run across multiple CPU cores.

V6.1.Build 1008 22/Aug/2007
Patch release

• Corrected a software failure bug on startup on a few systems where the system OEM had not populated Baseboard information.
• Corrected a software failure bug on startup (particularly Vista) where a DirectX function was causing software failures in "dsetup.dll".
• In some cases where the system OEM has not populated Baseboard information, the display in the Baseline information window could be gibberish. This has been corrected.
• The Fixed block size in the Advanced Network test is now used rather than the maximum block size.
• The Intel Core 2 Quad has been added to the search function for downloading Baselines from the Web.
• Quad core L2 cache now detected.
• Included an option to skip the DirectX warning message on startup, either by specifying the existing command line parameter of "/i" or by selecting "No" to the DirectX warning the first time it is displayed.
• Included a Vista specific warning message for Vista DirectX10 to help avoid confusion over the DirectX9.0c requirement for PerformanceTest.
• In very, very rare cases, the CPU clock speed could be measured and the result a clearly ridiculous value. This has been corrected.
• Minor correction to the HTML export to better handle errors opening the output file.
• The filename displayed in the error message when the exported text report file can not be opened has been corrected.

V6.1.Build 1003 1/May/2007
Patch release

• Added the ability to throttle the UDP data throughput with the Advanced Network test.
• Minor bug corrections.
  

V6.1.Build 1002 3/April/2007
Patch release

• Resolved an issue where PerformanceTest would fail to start on systems with DEP enabled for all programs.
• Corrected the Start menu help link.
• Minor bug corrections
• Ceased support for Windows 98 and ME. Please see our website for an older version supporting Windows 98 and ME.
  

WIN64 specific:

• Corrected a bug where the number of cores reported on a Quad core system was incorrectly reported as CPU packages.
• Improvement in Graphical user interface.
  

V6.1.Build 1001 28/December/2006
New point release

• Support for Windows Vista.
  • Previous versions of PerformanceTest required access to a range of resources that, under Vista, were only accessible when PerformanceTest was run with elevated privileges. The following changes have been made to address this. The changes have also been made to Windows 2000 and XP for a consistent user experience.
  • Windows 2000, XP and Vista:
    • Files have been moved from the Program Files directory to the User Personal directory. Examples: Vista - "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\PassMark\PerformanceTest", XP - "My Documents\PassMark\PerformanceTest\". These include: The baseline installation directory, Download Baselines from Web, Upload baseline, all HTML report default directories, default Save As Baseline and image, default Export results and Export Results For Web, Debug logging and the CD burn test image.
    • PerformanceTest will now check both the Program Files and User Personal directory for the following files: a key.dat file (for running PerformanceTest from CD or USB drive), for installing baseline files and for installing Cascading Style Sheets for HTML report formatting.
    • Files have been moved from the Program Files directory to the User Application directory. Examples: Vista - "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\PassMark\PerformanceTest", XP - "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\PassMark\PerformanceTest". These include: The configuration file and temporary files such as statistics files for the Advanced tests.
    • For disk tests (standard, advanced and multiprocess), an option has been added to allow the User Application directory to be used for the test (as the user may not have access to any of the root directories to perform the test).
    • If the User is running Vista and is not running PerformanceTest with elevated administrator, some system management BIOS information will not be available (such as number of RAM slots). A button, "Get info", has been added to the Baseline information window to run a program to collect this information. The user will be requested to accept elevated administration for this operation.
    • The previous version of PerformanceTest did not collect the Video Card description on Vista. This has been corrected.
      
  • All operating systems:
    
  • DirectX Direct3D has been updated to 9.0c October 2006. This was mainly to correct a bug in DirectX where temporary texture files were written to the root directory, which in most cases the user did not have access to when using Vista. PerformanceTest now includes the update installation for DirectX Direct3D October 2006.
  • The Baseline selection Window now displays the Operating System for Vista and Longhorn correctly.
  • The error message "This program might not have installed correctly" after installation is no longer incorrectly displayed.
• To provide the ability to automate quite complex testing scenarios, scripting of Standard preference configuration settings and test selection has been added.
• To assist test automation, an option to suppress the main test warning and error messages has been added to preferences.
  
• Increased the maximum number of CPU processors that can be tested from 10 to 64.
  
• Added a new formatted text result report.
• Browser based HTML help replaces the older style of Windows help.
• The Baseline selection Window is now resizable.
• The CPU type, rather than the manufacturer is now displayed in the Baseline selection Window.
• Saved results are now all shown to 1 decimal place, and RAM is shown in MegaBytes rather than Bytes.
• The 64-bit version of PerformanceTest better reflects current 64-bit application performance when compared to the previous versions of PerformanceTest, which reflected early 64-bit applications.
• The set of baselines provided with PerformanceTest provide a wider spread of PC hardware technologies.
• Additional system information is now available on 64-bit Vista systems as the Device driver PerformanceTest uses is now digitally signed.
• The User Interface graphics and icons have been updated.
• Bug corrections:
  • During the 3D test, an error Window could have been obscured by the main PerformanceTest Window. The user may have thought that PerformanceTest had stopped responding.
  • On the result graphs, a long CPU type description could continue off the Window. The CPU type is now split across 2 lines if required.
  • "Install Baseline from Web" would fail if "Install Baseline from File" had been used beforehand.
  • The Advanced Disk test could display the status "stopping", instead of error in an error case.
  • If RAM slot information was not available, the device information for the memory test would show 0 of 0 slots.
  • The PerformanceTest Version number inconsistently used "V6.0" and "6.0". The V is now ommitted.
  • Some additional checks to ensure corrupt OEM populated SMBIOS data does not cause PerformanceTest to close on startup.
  • The title bar icon for the Download from Web Window has been corrected.
  • Corrected a bug where-by on rare occasions PerformanceTest could close when selecting Next or Previous on the Download from Web Window.
  • The Download from Web Window error messages must be OK'ed before continuing.
  • The main window is now updated to reflect any changes made in preferences.
  • In all of the Save As Windows, a blank filename was accepted and saved as e.g. ".pt", this is no longer accepted.
  • Selecting a Graphics file name to save would incorrectly set this as the default Baseline name to save.
  • PerformanceTest would close when in the Save as Test Window, the filename was blank and a different type of report was selected. This has been corrected.

V6.0.Build 1013 1/September/2006
Patch release

• Corrected a bug in V6.0 1012 where the CPU test would not run if the system did not have the latest Microsoft Runtime library msvcr08.dll (this should not have been required).
  

V6.0.Build 1012 29/August/2006
Patch release

• Changes to the CPU tests to overcome a problem on some dual core systems where PerformanceTest could crash. This problem was reported mainly for AMD X2 systems. Error displayed: "access violation at 0x7c91084b".
• Intel Core 2 and Intel Core Duo have been added to the Online Baseline search.
• Correction to the uploading of a Baseline file where the filename is specified by the user (i.e. not the current results).
• A baseline with a result of 0 can no longer be uploaded.
• On startup in x64 versions of Windows, a PerformanceTest message window is obscured by the PerformanceTest splash screen. This has been corrected.
• HTML help has been added for Windows Vista and Longhorn Server.
  

V6.0.Build 1011 28/June/2006
Patch release

• Improvements to the Advanced disk test:
  (i) Reduced the minimum file size from 1MB to 128Bytes.
  (ii) Allow partial results to be graphed and exported.

V6.0.Build 1010 19/April/2006
Patch release

• The Large RAM test could have failed on a system with a large amount of RAM that was fragmented. PerformanceTest will now continually attempt to allocate successively smaller amounts of memory and hence avoids this problem.
  
• Under Windows 2000, XP and 2003 server, the system data (SMBIOS) was unavailable in rare circumstances. This has been corrected.
• Searching for "Pentium D" and "TransMeta" CPUs has been added to the Install baseline from Web.
  
• When the OEM has not filled in the recommended CPU string, PerformanceTest now fills the string in with a little more detail.

V6.0.Build 1009 24/February/2006
Patch release

• Corrected a bug where the 3D Terrain test could crash in build 1008.
• Under certain circumstances the number of CPU cores was not reported in the HTML report. This has been corrected.
• On systems with a very large amount of RAM or highly fragmented RAM, the large memory test would fail with no error message. This test now adjusts the test memory for this situation and reports an appropriate error if the problem still occurs.
• When running PerformanceTest from CD, the Advanced CD test failed if the PerformanceTest CD was the CD under test.
• When running PerformanceTest from CD, the Advanced test graphing function is not available, however a blank graph was just shown. An information message is now displayed.
• The Advanced CD test could under certain circumstances report that it was 99% complete, when it was 100% complete. This has been corrected.
• Corrected a bug with the Advanced Disk test graph, where the disk size was reported as 0MB for disks smaller then 1GB.
• Some Pentiums (where the CPU does not support the reporting of the number of cores - this can still be a single core CPU), PerformanceTest indicates it can not detect whether Hyperthreading is supported.
• Added a specific error message if the 3D Terrain test is run from a read only location (e.g. a CD) and DirectX fails to create the terrain textures.
  

V6.0.Build 1008 rev.2 23/January/2006
Patch release
WIN32 build 23 / January / 2006

• Change to try to resolve a startup issue.

V6.0.Build 1008 18/November/2005
Patch release
WIN32 build 18 / November / 2005 and WIN64 build 22 / November / 2005

• Corrected a bug where a long Baseline download filename was not displayed on the Baseline download Window (or possibly closed PerformanceTest).
• If the number of CPU test threads was set to 0 (by the user or a CPU information detection problem) then the CPU tests appear to run (but don't) and no CPU results are shown. The number of CPU test threads must now be between 1 and 10
  (inclusive), with a default of 1.
• In the case where PerformanceTest does not have access to the number of logical processes supported by the Operating system, PT may have exited without warning on startup. eg. systems running VMWare. PerformanceTest will now run, but with an indication that Hyperthreading could not be detected.
• Test results have been made more consistent across multiple test runs.
• The 3D test now invalidates the 3D test results and displays an error or warning if (i) the user presses Escape, (ii) a Popup removes focus from the 3D test window (iii) there is a rendering error.
• To improve accuracy of low results displayed, for results less than five, two decimal places will now be shown.
• Advanced Memory: Capped the test memory to 0.5GB, as test on systems with a large amount of RAM may fail due to memory fragmentation.
• Corrected a bug where this error condition was not correctly handled, and the "Exit" button was inaccessible.
• Corrected the Advanced Network Test "Connection setup failed" status message.
• Advanced 3D: Increased the size of the Adapter combo and truncated the string if too long.
• Advanced CD: Test file directory control expanded.
• Save As baseline: Window size increased to fit Number of CPUs

WIN64 specific:

• Bug entering licence key has been corrected.

V6.0.Build 1006 16/September/2005
Patch release
WIN32 build

• Improvements to the Advanced Network test. Includes the addition of reporting the number of UDP test data blocks lost per reporting time period.
• Corrected the number of CPU cores reported for AMD Dual core CPU's. Previously CPU cores were reported as CPU packages.

V6.0.Build 1005 5/September/2005
Major release
WIN32 and WIN64 builds

• A new "game like" 3D test has been included as a standard and an advanced test. This test will make use of some of the advanced features in new graphics cards.
  
• To make it easier to compare your results with similar types of computers, Baseline searching, downloading and uploading is now possible from with-in PerformanceTest.
  
• A new Memory test has been added that measures the performance of the memory sub-system for applications that use a large amount of RAM.
• The Advanced Memory test now allows the testing of 64-bit data (in addition to 8, 16, and 32-bit data).
  
• A new Advanced CD test to measure the performance of CD-R/CD-RW writing has been added (under Windows XP and 2003 server).
  
• The Export for Web feature allows the comparison between the current computer and all selected baseline computers to be exported in HTML. This has been improved to highlight the highest scoring test results for each test, test category and overall result.
• Changes to CPU test:
  - A new CPU test has been added - Prime number test;
  - The MMX test has been removed;
  - The CPU - Integer Math's, CPU - Floating Point, and all memory tests, that now test with a combination of 32 and 64-bit values (rather than just 32-bit values as was the case in PT5.0).
• The standard disk tests have been changed to improve the accuracy and consistency of results, particularly for high end hard disk drives.
  
• Test re-weighting. Due to advances of technology components at different rates, re-balancing the results between major tests has been undertaken to achieve our intended importance/weighting of each test (as described in the help file).
  
• The Graphical User Interface has been updated.

V5.0.Build 1036 30/June/2005
Patch release
WIN64

• WIN64 specific: Due to a change in defaults from DirectX 8 to 9, the Windowed 3D tests (Simple and Medium) may not have run as fast as possible, and hence yielded lower scores. PerformanceTest has been changed to measure the maximum 3D performance under DirectX9.

V5.0.Build 1035 15/April/2005
Patch release
WIN32 and WIN64 builds

• Corrected a bug introduced in build 1033 with the SSE test.

V5.0.Build 1033 11/April/2005
Patch release
WIN32 and WIN64 builds

• The Advanced Memory test now includes a Qword (64-bit data element) test data size. This is useful in showing the benefits of 64-bit memory access with a 64-bit system.
  
• The WIN32 version of PerformanceTest can now read a WIN64 produced baseline for comparison). Previously only the WIN64 version could read a WIN32 produced baseline.
• In the Baseline list, Windows 2003 Server is now also displayed for the Operating system.
  
• When printing the results from the Menu "Print", any "Device info" was printed so small it was unreadable. This has been corrected.
  
• In the Advanced Network test, the export results no longer prints the column of unused "number of packets sent/received".
  
• The help file has been modified to further clarify the meaning of the comparative Results.
  

V5.0.Build 1032 25/February/2005
Patch release
WIN32 build

• Corrected a bug where the display of some memory sizes was not correctly displayed with systems with more than 2GB of RAM. Note that the WIN32 version of PerformanceTest reports a maximum of 4GB of memory.
• To help interpretation of the Disk test scores in the baselines, some additional information has been added to the "Device Info" to indicate whether the disk is Removable or a RAM disk. This will help baseline users determine whether a very high disk score is the result of using a RAM disk or a removable drive like a USB 2.0 memory card/stick. This information will be available for baselines created with V5.0 1032 or above.
• In certain circumstances, systems with a large amount of memory (e.g. 3GB) have reported very high disk scores that do not strictly reflect the performance of the Disk I/O subsystem. The disk test has been improved to report the Disk I/O subsystem performance for these types of systems.

V5.0.Build 1031 16/February/2005
Patch release
WIN32 build

• Added the command line option SAFEMODE to start PerformanceTest without trying to obtain SMBIOS information. This may help with problems starting PerformanceTest, due to corrupt SMBIOS or SMBIOS not configured by the OEM. eg. PT.exe SAFEMODE.

V5.0.Build 1030 29/January/2005
Patch release
WIN32 build

• PerformanceTest crashed on startup if the System Management BIOS information pointed to data at invalid physical addresses. A sanity check for valid SMBIOS data addresses has been added and an warning displayed by PerformanceTest if this is found.

V5.0.Build 1029 17/January/2005
Patch release
WIN32 build

• Added debug information for a reported SMBIOS crash in W98.

V5.0.Build 1028 12/December/2005
Patch release
WIN64 build

• First Windows64 bit version of PerformanceTest. Runs under a 64bit version of Windows natively.
• WIN32 MMX and SSE/3DNow! benchmarks have been replaced by 64-bit Integer and 64bit Floating Point tests, respectively.
  
• To allow easy comparison of baseline results, WIN32 baseline files are compatible with WIN64 baselines.
  

V5.0.Build 1027 10/October/2004
Patch release

• Increased the Advanced disk test IO queue length for asynchronous tests to 128.

V5.0.Build 1026 23/August/2004
Patch release

• Minor User interface improvements.
• Increased DEBUGMODE reporting for SMBIOS on application startup. Check added for invalid SMBIOS table termination.

V5.0.Build 1017 30/July/2004
Patch release

Corrections:

• Advanced disk test now checks the total disk test file size across all test threads before starting any test.
• Unformatted key drive handling.
• 2D graphics test now produces linear results based on test duration.
• Graphs now display 10 different colors for each test thread (instead of 5).
• Windows 98/ME corrections to:

  - Unable to complete Advanced Disk Test.
  - File->Export results for Web option does not allow choosing of a cascading style sheet.
  - Baseline Information option doesn't show Disk information.
  - Tooltips do not work on top menu bar
  - When running 2D -> "Fonts and Text" Test under Win98SE, an error box will pop up and the user cannot click on the "Yes" or "No button.

• Installation now warns of existing directory.
• Advanced 3D test error messages are no longer 'Hidden'.
• A specific error message has been added when a user tries to install an already installed baseline.
• It is now indicated in the Baseline information window whether onboard device and system slot information is unavailable.
• When a PC comes out of Sleep mode, under all certain circumstances the status bar is now correctly redrawn.
• Average WAW in the advanced disk test has been corrected.
• Viewing a graph when there are valid results for 10 or more threads is now correctly handled.
• Menu item ellipses (...) have been updated.
• The setting box in the advanced 3D options no longer becomes incorrectly ungrayed.
• When the user stops the Advanced disk test, the progress bar is immediately set back to the start, rather than when the test is next started.
• The cascading style sheet is now correctly applied when exporting a "file to the web" to all directories, not just the installation directory.
• The "Office" cascading style sheet has been removed, as it was the same as the "Default" cascading style sheet.
• When the advanced disk test is stopped by the user, the status now indicates stopped rather than completed.
• The PerformanceTest folder is now removed in all cases after uninstalling the program.
• The existing testing utilizing Hyperthreading enabled computers improved.
• Rounding precision improved in the display of free disk space on the with baseline information window.
  

V5.0.1014 Release on the 24/June/2004
Patch release

• Corrected the handling of stopping an advanced disk test during a test file create.
• Corrected the initial display value for Ave. WAR, WAW, RAW and RAR.
• Included detection of old versions of riched20.dll for the 2D Fonts and scrolling test.
• Updated help file included.
  

V5.0.1013 Release on the 15/Apr/2004
Patch release

• Corrected handling of an SMBIOS v3.2+ issue that has been found on a very small number of PCs, that caused PerformanceTest to crash on startup.
  

V5.0.1011 Release on the 19/Mar/2004
Patch release

• Bug correction - collection of disk model number "unknown" for all disks, when one or more non-SMART drives connected. Device information displayed per disk, rather than being common across the 3 disk tests. Disk device information now changed to reflect changes in disk preferences.

V5.0.1010 Release on the 17/Feb/2004
Patch release

• Advanced network test optimized for Gigabit network testing.

V5.0.1008 Release on the 9/Jan/2004
Patch release

• Bugfix for saving disk baseline information
• Correction of rare startup crash bug
• Bugfix related to baseline hyperthreading information
• Advanced tests no longer report CPU load of 0.0% when it is unable to determine the CPU load on that specific system.

V5.0.1000 Release on the 10/Dec/2003
Major release

• Whole new visual look for the main results window
• Replacement of the Maths test suite with a more general CPU test suite. This new CPU test suite also has better performance with multiple CPU and Hyper-threaded machines.
  
• New 2D Graphics test: Fonts and Text. Tests typical rendering of text and embedded document images by scrolling, zooming, and font changing.
• New 2D Graphics test: GUI. Tests the rendering and interaction of Windows GUI controls such as list boxes, progress bars, tree view, and window movements.
• New CPU test suite, with better performance for multiple CPU and hyper-threaded machines.
• Advanced multi-process test: allows you to run multiple test processes at the same time to test your CPU's multi-tasking capabilities.
• Advanced disk test: new test window, allows you to specify and run multiple disk test threads. Also, additional information and statistics reported.
• Advanced CD/DVD-ROM test now identifies DVDs and displays the appropriate "times" factor relative to read speed (eg. "2x DVD")
• Updated decoding of level 2 cache display to handle newer CPU's such as the Celeron 2.2Ghz.
• Additional statistics for the advanced disk test.
• Merging of the MMX/SSE tests and the CPU tests and the rewriting of the MMX/SSE tests to be more realistic.
• Hyperthreading is now taken into account when displaying the number of CPUs installed.
• UDP protocol network testing, in addition to TCP
• Bug fix: PT was crashing when SMBIOS data was not found. This is now handled correctly
  
• Main test results can now be exported for the Web with customizable stylesheets.
• HTML Web Reports supports user defined stylesheets, which can be selected from a drop-down box in the HTML Report Options dialog.
  
• Additional system information is now displayed in the baseline information window. Including Motherboard information, PCI slot information, and memory slot information.
• New baseline file format to store the additional system information.
• The baseline information window was given a new look with scroll bars to handle more text
  
• DEBUGMODE command line startup option
• Increased maximum packet size for network test to 16385 from 4096
• Hardware component display

V4.0 Released on the 1/Sept/2002
Major release

• Advanced disk testing with graphing,exporting and CPU utilization.
• Advanced CD/DVD testing with graphing, exporting and CPU utilization.
• Advanced 3D graphics testing for full screen and windowed modes
• Advanced network bandwidth testing with graphing exporting and CPU utilization.
• Advanced memory bandwidth testing and step size testing with graphing and exporting.
• Replacement of the standard 3D graphics test using DirectX 3 with three new DirectX 8 tests.
• A new standard test for CD / DVD drive benchmarking has been introduced.
• Much of the internal code has been rewritten to support foreign languages (French, German, Japanese).
• Many other minor improvements.
  

V3.5.1002  Released on the 12/Feb/2002
Patch release

• HTML Export function now exports system information for logging and inventory purposes.
• Bug fix to correct Level 2 cache display for Pentium 4 CPU's with more 512KB cache.
  

V3.5.1000 Released on the 29/Oct/2001
Minor release to support Windows XP

• Improvement to the user interface to better match the Windows XP look and feel. (Only available when running XP)
• Identification of the XP operating system in the system information window
• Correct Identification of video cards under XP

V3.4.1002 Released on the 3/Oct/2001
Minor release to fix a few bugs.

• Bug fix. A rare crash occurred while saving a baseline file.
• Correct reporting of RAM in machines with > 2GB of RAM.
• Bug fix. Baseline files with path names longer than 100 characters could not be loaded

V3.4.1001 Released on the 3/Sept/2001
Minor release for test automation.

• New command line parameters for automated testing from a batch file. See the help file for more details.
• Bug fix to MegaFlops test, which returned 0 on a few rare PCs with very low resolution timers.
• Bug fix to CPU type detection. Some early model Pentium II 300Mhz were reported as being Celerons.

V3.4  Released on the 21/Apr/2001
Minor release for new CPU types.

• Work around for bug in AMD Duron processor that caused L3 cache to be reported as 1KB. See AMD technical document, "TN13 revision 3" for more details of the bug.
• Detection of Intel P4 CPU and new AMD chips.
• Baseline version number is displayed in System info and baseline list.
• New SSE and 3DNow! test added in MMX test suite.
• Correction of a minor display bug in the baseline selection window for CPUs faster than 1000Mhz.
• New command line parameters for automation of the testing process (eg /ah autoruntest.htm).

V3.3  Released on the 12/Nov/2000
Minor release to implement disk test graphing.

• Disk speed test graphs have been implemented. Both read and write speed can be graphed in detail, with options to print the results, copy the results & adjust the X-Axis units.
• Improved overhead calibration method for MegaFlops test results should now vary less between runs.
• Statistics are now collected for the disk read and write tests. They are placed in four files in tab separated format:
  DiskReadStats.txt, DiskWriteStats.txt,
  DiskReadStatsTB.txt, DiskWriteStatsTB.txt
• Extra delay inserted before Read test to avoid overlap with cached test file creation. This can have the effect of making the read test result look slightly better.

V3.2 Released on the 12/Oct/2000
Minor release to improve disk testing.

• Disk cluster size is now displayed in the system information dialog and stored in all new baselines files.
• File system (eg. FAT32) is now displayed in the system information dialog and stored in all new baselines files.
• The disk test has been altered to always use 16KB blocks for read and write operations. Previously the cluster size for the disk being tested was used. (This may cause the results for the disk tests to vary compared to the results obtained in Version 3.1 & 3.0).
• Fixed bug in display of disk size in the system information dialog. Previously the size of Drive c: was always displayed, even if D: was being tested.
• The AMD Duron CPU is now identified.
• Windows ME is now identified.

V3.1 Released on the 1/Sept/2000
Minor release to correct some serious bugs.

• A problem in the calculation of the overall PassMark rating was discovered and corrected. The results from the 3D test and MMX tests were not being fully taken into account. This means that the release 3.1 PassMark rating can NOT BE DIRECTLY COMPARED to the 3.0 rating. Baselines saved in versions 1,2 & 3.0 are automatically re-scaled, upwards, when loaded into version 3.1 however. (so all previous baseline files can still be used in 3.1).
• Fixed spelling of 'Subtraction' for MMX tests.
• Fixed integer overflow error causing negative results when long duration is set with fast CPUs.

V3.0 Released on the 15/Aug/2000
Major upgrade.

• Better CPU speed measurement. In some configurations, such as multiple CPU systems, V2.0 was reporting the wrong speed. The test is now much more accurate on all systems. In some cases we can even measure to 1/10th of a Mhz.
• Improved differentiation of similar CPU types. Previously it was not always possible to detect the difference between some Celerons and Pentium processors.
• New logo was created for the Welcome screen and the about window. The new logo keeps a common theme with our other products.
• Added a splash screen.
• Changed the Operating version text from "NT5" to "Windows 2000".
• Dual CPUs are now supported in the baseline info window.
• Video display hardware is now detected, displayed and saved with baseline files.
• Added conversion routines for reading baseline files from previous versions.
• Added a drop down list for selecting the disk drive letter in the preferences window.
• It is now possible to give a name to the computer being tested from the preferences window. This is useful when publishing or exporting results.
• Reformatted the way the main window was laid out. The previous design was confusing some novice users. The % column heading was removed, a scale was included with check marks and extended units of measurement text is included above the scale if the window is wide enough.
• The bar chart can now be displayed in Multicolour or in two colors.
• A new test has been created. The test measures maximum number of floating point instructions that can be executed per second (FLOPS). The test is multithreaded (unlike existing tests) and will make full use of multiple CPUs if available. The test result also has zero overhead. The results of this industry standard test are also included in the summary window.
• A progress bar and the name of the current test is displayed when there is more than a single test being run.
• The scaling of the bar chart is now more progressive. The maximum value will now increase in smaller increments.
• Redid buttons, moved from large buttons to small buttons and added 3 extra buttons.
• Included MegaFLOPS in the Summary window.
• Updated and improved online help file.
• Added help buttons to a number of the dialog boxes.
• Redid the auto-installer to have the option of starting PerformanceTest immediately after installation. The size overhead of the installation program is now much smaller as well.
• The .pt file name extension is registered with Windows. This means you can double click on a ".pt" file in explorer to see the baseline results.
• Implemented scrolling with the mouse wheel.

V2.0a  Released on the 23/Jan/2000
Minor bug fixes to correct two significant issues.

• There seems to be a bug in DirectX that causes the textures required for the 3D tests not to load on a very small number of computers (this fault may even be associated with a particular video card / driver). V2.0a has a patch to work around this problem. The error message associated with this problem is, "..Error loading the required texture Bitmap file from disk..".

• With a small minority of video cards, the unfilled shapes test doesn't run for the correct amount of time and the result for this test is too low. This is often associated with the filled rectangles (bitmaps) test returning a result that is too high. The problem is related to the speed of the 2D hardware acceleration and the CPU speed. The problem can occur if the CPU can request the display of images a lot faster than the video card can display them. V2.0a corrects this problem.

• A number of error messages were also improved.

V2.0 Released on the 1/Nov/99
Major release with a lot of improvements over version 1.0.

• A button to run all the tests sequentially was added.
• When several disk tests are run, the test file is not recreated for each test. This means that the tests can be completed quicker.
• The disk tests now read and write information in larger blocks. In version 1.0, 1KB blocks were used. In this version the cluster size is determined and all disk reads and writes are done a cluster at a time. The cluster size varies from computer to computer. The average is around 32KB. This makes the test closer to the real life. Transfer rates are still reported in MB/Sec.
• The disk tests were redone. There were about 20-30% of computers that did strange things when the Windows cache was disabled. Some ignored the command, some went to far and disabled the disk controller HW cache, etc..
  The results were all over the place in some cases; so the test was dropped. We now use the cache but overload it so that we see the performance of the disk behind the cache.
• An additional Disk Seek plus read and write test was added.
• It's now possible to export the results in several "text" formats. This includes HTML, Comma separated values, and tab separated values.
• Added a registration button on the tool bar.
• Extra information is now saved with each baseline. This includes Drive size, Driver letter (eg. C:, D: ).
• Some code was reworked to improve compatibility on early Windows95 machines. We have even run PerformanceTest on some old 486 machines using the original Windows95 (+Directx).
• It's now possible to view baseline results without re-running all the tests.
• Multiple Baselines can now be viewed on the screen at one time. Up to 20 computers can be compared to each other at a time.
• The Select Baseline window was introduced to managed the addition and removal of baselines from the screen and display information about all the baselines available.
• The graphics on the display was improved and graphs now re-size themselves to the window size.
• The size of the notes field (in the Save as Baseline window) was increased to allow the user to add more information.
• Some tests display information about their environment. The graphics tests display the color depth next to each baseline. The disk tests display the drive letter.
• A problem with the Microsoft C++ compiler that caused inconsistent results for the MMX tests was worked around. The problem was to do with the alignment of 64bit numbers on the stack and caused some computers to report low MMX results.
• The printing was improved to handle the differences between landscape and portrait. A page header and page numbers are also included.
• The online help was updated and improved.
• Scrolling is now smoother. The Home, End, Page up and Page down keys now also work.
• The save as image option was enhanced to save Bitmaps (BMP) and GIF files. This is a great feature for those that want to publish their results on the web.
• The shareware trial period was increased to 30days (from 15).
• A single overall result figure is now calculated. We called this the PassMark Rating. It's a weighted average of all the other test results.
• A menu option was added to directly access the PassMark baseline database on the Web (you still need to be a registered user to use these additional baselines however).

V1.0a Released on the 3/June/99

• Minor patch to correctly report speed for high end AMD CPUs.

V1.0    Released on the 16/May/99

• First version released to the world. Wins numerous awards, whoopeee :-